


Second chances come and go (but phoenixes are forever)

by Irrelevancy



Category: One Piece
Genre: Ace Lives, Alabasta Arc, Alive Thatch (One Piece), Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Amnesia, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Choking, Family Feels, M/M, Meet the Family, Mutual Pining, Self-Worth Issues, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-06-18 21:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 49,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15495015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: The deal he made with the horned creature was: a life for a life.Good thing phoenixes are immortal.Marco's Time Travel Fix-it!AU.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> How many years has it been since Marineford, yet how collectively Not Over It are we?
> 
> Please enjoy this spawn of my wishful thinkings, because Marineford + the Payback War (overwhelming defeat?!) + Marco's recent appearance with Nekomamushi was all just? too?? painful?/?? Give us Thatch back too, dammit, we love that guy.
> 
> Opening story is an Indonesian folktale told to me by my professor. The original had a snake, not a bird—because snakes protected rice paddies from rodents, they were actually upheld as deities. And isn't it nice, a story that doesn't punish women for perceived indolence?

Before he met Sabo and Luffy, back when he was just a ball of incendiary fury packed into a kiddie frame, Ace heard a story. He was at a transient shelter, and an old migrant woman was rocking her little girl to sleep. They carried dirty packs of huge farming tools with them, laying in a pile by their assigned cot, cramped and small next to Ace’s. It was the first bed Ace had gotten to lay in in a while, but for some reason, sleep just wouldn’t come. 

“Má, tell me the bird story?”

The little girl’s whisper cut through the invasive voices from the day replaying in Ace’s head. All the _Pirate King_ this and _Devil’s child_ that had just refused to turn off—Ace turned silently toward the girl and her mother, hoping she would tell the bird story. 

“Last one, and you promise to sleep?” The little girl must have nodded in agreement, because the mother started, “once upon a time, there was a little girl and her mother, living all by themselves. They made their money by farming _mê_ , but it was hard, hard work. They rose before the sun everyday and went to bed after the sky grew dark again.”

The shelter was dark, too poor to afford any gentle lighting for the evening, but Ace’s eyes have always been good. As far as he could see, this was not a story—not a fictional one, at any rate. Who was the bird?

“One day, the mother rose before the sun as usual. She woke her daughter and said, ‘there’s lots and lots to get done today, I will need your help. While I work in the field, you shuck the _mê_ , understood?’

“The mother took her scythe and went to work, and the little girl grumpily pulled herself out of bed. She already hated being woken up so early, see, and just yesterday, she had seen the royal ladies from the kingdom above cross their village in a chariot. Those ladies and their daughters, the little girl thought, get to wake up whenever they want, and their fingers don’t hurt from shucking _mê_ all day.

“So with a heavy heart, the girl got to work. There were four giant bags of _mê_ to shuck, each twice as tall and three times as wide as she. The girl couldn’t help it—as she tossed her first batch of _mê_ up and down in the shucker, she began to cry.”

Ace heard the little girl gasp in excitement, her voice joining her mother’s for the next part:

“ _Why do you cry_?” The little girl’s voice continued on its own, “it’s the bird! The big blue bird! It’s so nice.”

“Yes, but the little girl was cautious at first,” the mother admonished, “because her mother told her to be careful of strangers. The blue bird had appeared out of nowhere, perched on their windowsill. The little girl answered, ‘I have worked endlessly since I could walk, my mother for far longer. We never get to take a break, and it seems like we never will. There’s so much _mê_ to farm and shuck. It will never stop.’

“‘Let me help,’ said the bird. ‘Do you trust me?’

“The little girl looked at the bird in her window, who was the same shade of blue as the sky, as her mother’s _mê_ paddies. The bird fluffed its wings slightly, and its feathers rippled out in a shimmer of gold.

“‘I would like your help,’ the little girl finally said, ‘and I would like to trust you.’”

Turning in his sheets, Ace edged closer to the woman and child. He was utterly consumed by the story now, and wanted to know what will happen.

“That night, when the mother got home, her little girl was nowhere to be seen. The bags of _mê_ she brought with her fell to the ground in her shock. She searched every inch of the little house they lived in, and concluded that not only was her daughter gone, but also the four bags of _mê_ they had worked so hard to harvest just two days before.

“The woman ran into the village, asking everyone she came across if they had seen her daughter. It was the old weaver woman who answered her.

“‘I saw everything,’ the weaver woman said, ‘a great and terrible bird flew down and ate your daughter, along with all the _mê_ it could see.’

“‘And where,’ the woman asked, hoisting her meat cleaver, the one she used to butcher the quails and rabbits they sometimes captured, ‘did this bird go?’

“She followed the weaver woman’s directions to the pond behind her own _mê_ paddies, and sure enough, there sat the bird. It was a gentle shade of blue, not at all terrible, but this was the bird that ate her daughter. The woman advanced, keen on vengeance.

“‘Who are you?’ the bird asked her, unmoving. Its wings were spread, wrapped around something in front of it.

“‘I am the mother of the girl shucking _mê_ this morning,’ the woman answered. ‘Is it true you ate my daughter?’

“‘I swallowed the girl whole,’ the bird confirmed, ‘and all the _mê_ I could see.’

“‘Then you and I,” the woman said, bringing up her cleaver, ‘have nothing more to say to each other.’

“The woman brought her cleaver down, slicing through the bird’s outstretched wing. No blood came. Instead, golden light like sunsets poured out, and blue feathers melted away like ice in a river. As the wing and the bird dissipated, the treasure it protected was revealed—the little girl, safe and sleeping soundly, atop her four bags of _mê_.”

“And she was covered in _gold_ ,” the little girl whispered. Her voice was closer than Ace had anticipated, and Ace froze, stopping himself from getting even closer. “Don’t forget mommy, don’t forget the gold.”

“That’s right,” the mother chuckled, “thank you for reminding me. From the stomach of the bird came her little girl, whole and unharmed, covered in trinkets of gold. Headbands, hair pins, necklaces, bracelets—they were all draped across her body and shined brightly in the blue bird’s dissipating embers. 

“The mother watched, stunned, as the last of the bird disappeared, and the little girl woke up. She yawned and stretched, declared that was the best nap she’s ever had.

“‘I have so much energy,’ the little girl said, ‘that tomorrow, you can sleep in, mother. I will get up and go to the fields. I feel I should get the day’s work done in an hour, with all the fire inside me.’

“‘And what about,’ the mother asked, ‘the work of today?’

“Together, mother and daughter pushed open the tops of the four bags, and found every grain of _mê_ perfectly shucked and shining. Mother and daughter cheered, hauling the bags back to the house with them. With all the gold and all the _mê_ , they can finally afford to rest for a week—”

“A month!”

“Sh, honey, watch your volume… They can finally afford to rest for a whole month. The mother was finally able to bring her little girl to the great winter island in the north that the girl’s dreamed of seeing. And they lived happily ever after.”

For a long while, Ace laid in bed, thinking about the mother and daughter next to him, as well as the mother and daughter in the story. He thought about the great blue bird, and the act of pure kindness.

“Already asleep,” the mother murmured from the bed, barely audible over her daughter’s slight snores. “Silly goose.”

“How—” Ace stopped himself, but the mother didn’t seem startled at his sudden outburst. In fact, Ace thought he could even dimly see her smiling, teeth flashing in encouragement. He swallowed. “Did the bird survive? Is it okay?”

The mother was silent for a moment, before she chuckled softly.

“You’re a kind boy,” she said, and Ace was so surprised by the comment that he almost flung himself off the cot. Before he could demand an explanation (because what the _hell_ , people didn’t just say that, not to the likes of Ace at any rate), the woman went on, “yes, the bird is perfectly fine.”

“How can it be fine?” Ace argued. He kept his voice down though, with respects to the little girl that got him a chance to hear the story in the first place. “The mother killed it with a cleaver!”

“It’s a magical bird.” At Ace’s scoff, the mother insisted, “no, really! There are all manners of magical beasts on these seas, you know? This bird will die and be reborn through flames again.”

“An immortal bird?” Ace was thoroughly skeptical, but he supposed it wasn’t any more or less believable than the bird dressing a girl in gold and shucking millions of grains of _mê_ all by itself.

“That’s right,” the mother confirmed, voice dragging with sleep. “It’s a bird that can live forever, and ever, and ever…”

* * *

Marco knew it was a bad idea. He fucking _knew_. He could hear clearly the individual voices of everybody in his crew—every sibling and every ally—telling him what a shit idea it was, Pop’s voice more clearly than the rest.

 _You know better_ , Pops would tell him, and Marco knew the exact pitch of disappointment Whitebeard would’ve gone with, the one Whitebeard knew Marco was most susceptible to. _The world can’t work this way—imagine if everybody got the chance. Me, you, Ace—we can’t be exceptions_.

Marco knew. And yet.

 _Sounds like a trap_ , Ace might’ve warned him. _Sounds too good to be true_.

He knew. And yet. 

 _Don’t be an idiot, Marco_ , everybody else would say. _Just because you think you can’t die doesn’t mean you have to be so damn eager to play the martyr. Don’t be an idiot_.

He knew.

 _I don’t want this_ , Pop’s final try.

Yet.

“I’m sorry guys,” Marco muttered. He picked up a shard of rock and hardened it with haki, drawing the edge down the palm of his hand. Beside him, the little horned creature cackled victoriously. Blood dripped into the basin before him. “I know it’s a damn stupid idea yoi, but—but how can I possibly let this opportunity go?”

The dark liquid in the basin congealed instantly into what looked like a small black rock, no bigger than a blueberry.

“That’s right,” the horned creature agreed amicably. “A once in a millennia opportunity, to change the grand tides of time. Pick that up, and eat it.”

“Is that step one, or is that all?”

“You know the time you wish to go back to,” the creature shrugged. “The moment you swallow it, you’ll be brought there and then. That’s the first big drain on your life force, so you’ll probably be dizzy, nauseous, very weak, dying.”

“Ah, as long as that’s all.”

“The more you want to change, the more you’ll be drained.” The creature sounded practically giddy over the prospect, and Marco even managed a grin as he picked up the pebble. It’s utterly matte, so dark it seemed to lack even dimensionality.

“And you get to feed on everything I change?”

The creature made an eager slurping sound. “Naturally.”

“Well,” Marco said, tossing the pebble up into the air as he thought back to _that_ moment, the moment when everything changed. He had weighed the stakes as best he could, given the limited time he had, and now hoped fervently that this was the right decision. “Time to put the immortal phoenix to the test, yoi.”

* * *

Ace and Jozu were rendezvousing about a situation with a man and his horse and the ever-annoying Marines, on a third division ship. They were about an hour away from the Moby Dick with favorable winds, and planned to finish collecting the reports tonight to present to Pops in the morning. Below the deck, Marco had been napping since the big firefight earlier, because at the end of the day, he wasn’t a Logia like Ace, and despite all his regenerative powers, being riddled with bullets still gave Marco a bit of a headache. The other two commanders had ushered him to a dark room, waving off all his attempts to help, saying he could catch up on everything in the morning.

The night was clear and uneventful (well, by Whitebeard standards, meaning everything still smelled a bit of gunpowder and fire), and Ace was just about to turn in for the night when he heard commotion outside what Jozu called the war room. Exchanging a look with Jozu, Ace was instantly on his feet, the two commanders headed for the door within seconds.

Neither of them were quite prepared for Marco to throw himself in from the other side, panting. His gaze was wild before they honed in on Ace, and both Ace and Jozu watched, jaws dropped open, as Marco began to cry.

“Marco, what’s—” Looking frantically behind Marco for danger, Ace barely knew what to do. In his years with Whitebeard, he’s seen Marco shed tears for lost comrades, sure, but has never had the full force of that tragic gaze aimed at him.

“What’s happening?” Jozu demanded. Marco’s head snapped up at Jozu, then weirdly, stared down at Jozu’s right side. Before Ace knew it, Marco had all but body-slammed the two of them into a tight hug. He could feel Marco’s torso pressed tight against his own, Marco’s fingers clawing into his back tattoo.

Then, Ace realized, Marco was _shaking_. Unflappable, cool, level-headed Marco was shaking, _violently_ , in Ace and Jozu’s arms.

Ace and Jozu exchanged another look, far more panicked this time, and held the commander tighter.

“Marco,” Ace said urgently into the man’s ear, “what the hell’s happening?” He gulped, said quieter, “you’re scaring me.”

That worked like a cue for Marco to stiffen up and pull back. He did it with force, breaking Ace and Jozu’s hold on him, but his own hands lingered on Jozu’s arm and Ace’s shoulder. Tears were drying on his face, and his pupils a bit dilated, but his eyes were back to the focused Marco everybody knew.

“Get back to the Moby Dick yoi, fast as you can,” he commanded. His grip turned tight, but there was still a slight shake to them. “Together. Jozu, do _not_ let Ace go on alone.”

“What—”

“Is it Pops?” Jozu asked, cutting Ace off. Marco hurriedly shook his head, but visibly held back more that he wanted to say.

“I have to hurry.” Blue feathers were already growing along Marco’s arms and sides, and he was backing up out of the cabin. “You two as well. I’ll see you soon, and for the love of god, be  _careful_.”

Ace got the unhappy feeling Marco was mostly talking to him, so he exclaimed, frustratedly, “be careful of what?”

Marco’s expression was deadly before he fully morphed into phoenix form and launched into the sky, and the malicious tone of his last words before he left sent shivers down Ace’s spine.

“ _Marshall D. Teach_.”

* * *

Marco thought he had trained himself out of mindless panic decades ago, but it seemed like the right combination of shitty factors brought the childish, useless reaction right back. _Too late. I’m too late._ No, shut that off. There’s no sense in indulging that fear, it will only slow you down and scatter your focus. _I’m too late, again. It’s all going to happen again_. No. _No_ , it won’t.

Deep in the pit of his stomach, Marco could feel the unnerving cold of the swallowed pebble. It felt a lot like the time he had been shot with a seastone bullet, the spot just an unstoppered drain of energy. He could feel his flames trying to patch it up, but every feathery strand just got eaten with little aplomb. That, plus the way his whole body was rapidly declining from pain to numbness, were really not doing Marco’s panicked thoughts any favors.

_You’re too late._

_You won’t make a difference._

_Ace will still die, and Pops will still die, and you’ll just have to watch it all on your own again. You’ll be left behind again._

Marco let out the loudest scream his phoenix knew, the Moby Dick in sight. The deck too, was in sight, the two figures atop it, alone at this hour. Thatch’s ever-present pompadour, glossy with gel, and the glint of a knife, silver with the moon and red with blood. 

 _Too late_.

“ _No_ ,” Marco snarled, regaining his human torso just in time to rend his talons through Teach’s forearm. Teach yelped in pain, but reacted fast enough with the knife and haki to knick Marco’s thigh. Marco hit the landing a little too rough, but managed to find his footing.

“Marco,” Teach tsked, wariness filling his stance, “you weren’t expected back until morning.”

Ignoring him, Marco dove to Thatch’s side. Arterial blood rapidly pooled, and Thatch’s body was cooling. With a curse, Marco dug deep into himself, around the cold little pebble, and yanked up all his last reserves of energy. A still sizable flame of rebirth, more gold than blue, formed on his hand, and he quickly brought it to Thatch’s wound.

When he turned his gaze back fully to Teach, the other man looked inquisitive.

“You don’t seem all that surprised by a mutineer tonight, commander.” Marco’s lips drew back in a snarl at Teach’s vile laugh. “Impossible, but did you see this coming?”

“No,” Marco spat bitterly. “None of us saw you coming at all, yoi.”

Military response was fast on the Moby, and at the phoenix’s war cry, the crew had mobilized. They rushed to the deck now, but before Marco could see any of their faces, Teach made two swipes with his arms, and drew up a curtain of darkness that enveloped himself, Marco, and Thatch. Marco stiffened, recognizing the technique. So he was a little too late, after all. Optimally, he would have prevented Teach from eating the Yami Yami no Mi, sliced the bastard’s throat before he even had the opportunity to _touch_ Thatch.

“This is the strongest devil fruit on the seas,” Teach crowed, “but I’m not used to it. Can’t take on all the crew yet.”

Under Marco’s palm, Thatch had been growing warmer, bit by bit. But he was nowhere near stable, and Marco couldn’t get him to the medbay without breaking Teach’s technique.

“I gotta say though, I’m curious how my darkness will measure up against the immortal phoenix.”

With a thoroughly undignified bark of laughter, Marco shook his head. Teach gritted his teeth.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re the second creature to say that to me today, so no points for originality.” Marco could feel a pressure in the back of his throat, and figured there was an 80% chance it was blood. His flames over Thatch were crackling loudly, the way they did when Marco was fading. Fast. He would be easy pickings for Teach right now, and he just hoped someone on the outside would break through before—before. “But I suppose you are the more vile of the two, yoi.”

A den den mushi trilled from Teach’s belt, and Marco’s heart sank when Teach raised his hand, palm aimed at Marco. With horrible dread and not a small dose of self-admonishment, Marco realized his efforts would make no difference if he were the one to die at Teach’s hands tonight. He hasn’t told anybody what would happen in the future, so Ace would still go chase down the mutineer, and Marineford would still happen, just without Marco this time.

“If I’m so vile, and I kill you, what does that make you?” Blackness spewed from Teach’s palm, faster than Marco’s blurring vision could track. So he closed his eyes, relied on haki. “My crew is here to pick me up. Die now.”

Had Marco been fighting at full power, dodging would have been—well, not a piece of cake, but certainly a lot more possible. Instead, he was weighed down like there was seawater in every joint, every strand of muscle shot through with ice. Thatch was unmoving, but still breathing. Selfishly, Marco gave the last drop of his energy over to Thatch. If it all had to happen again, at least this time, Marco could have the blessing of death.

The darkness slipped under his feet and dragged him down. He felt both his shin bones snap like toothpicks under the immense pressure.

Maybe Red Hair would appear again, like the strange and omnipresent messiah he was, and take Marco to be buried near Pop’s hometown. He’d grown quite fond of the place, the quaint village living and all the green growing over the soot and warped steel. Without a home to call his own, he knew he’d rest well there.

The last of his flames sizzled out, and the whole circle was plunged into Teach’s darkness. It was smothering and sharp all at once, and seemed to claw its way down Marco’s throat, rending his esophagus to ribbons. Marco didn’t even bother screaming—he’s suffered this before, and knew that when he couldn’t even beat Teach with the rest of the commanders at his back, he was surely doomed to death here.

“What’s this?” he heard Teach mutter. The pebble in Marco’s stomach gave a slight tug—more pain. Like that bastard Kizaru’s light-beam attack, thousands of little needles drilling their way out from Marco’s torso. Oh he was screaming now. He couldn’t see, couldn’t smell, couldn’t hear. Could only taste blood, and feel the inch-by-inch decimation of his own body.

Would Thatch survive? Would it matter, in the end?

The darkness climbed higher and higher, and Marco’s senses were so far gone at that point that he didn’t even hear Teach’s sudden yell of pain. He didn’t feel the darkness retreating, his body receding into chilly shock even as the shadows slithered away. He didn’t hear the crackle of the air as steel clashed, and Whitebeard’s power split a whole escape ship in two.

He did, however, maintain enough consciousness to register the _floom!_ of flames, suddenly appearing at his side. The orange fire pressed warm, _hot_ into his back as Ace lifted his torso, and like natural gas meeting a lit match, Marco’s blue flames started up again. They were weak and small, though, and every feather-fire swirled down to a point on his abdomen, where a black spot had opened the size of a blueberry, gobbling up the flames with tenacious hunger.

“...Marco… _Marco_!”

He got his hearing back gradually. Urgent chatter across the deck all silenced when he groaned. Marco looked up to the source of warm fire burning at his back, found Ace’s horrified, helpless expression—he had looked the same, atop the execution platform, the moment Strawhat Luffy crash landed into the plaza.

Marco wanted to offer comfort, but could barely lift his hand. He did, however, register the flash of an off-white gurney, and his hand being moved off Thatch's body. Thatch was going to the medbay. God Marco hoped he survived.

“ _Pops_ —! He’s awake.” 

Whitebeard came into view, IV bag and thoracostomy tubes nowhere in sight. That’s no good. Marco swallowed, tried to talk, but everything congealed in his throat like blood. Izo was there too, just at the edge of his vision, yelling for someone to bring water. But Ace just increased his flames, more blue feathers lighting up along Marco’s battered torso.

In the fire light, Marco looked up at all the familiar faces of his family, memorizing them with hunger. Last time around, he hadn’t known it was the last night they would all still be there, happy and smiling and loving. All coldness aside, Marco already felt rather blessed to have this sight again.

“Marco, what’s that?” Ace’s voice was guttural with fury. He gestured at the spot of blackness on Marco, gobbling up their combined flames. “What did he do to you?”

The feather-flames were useful to Marco even in passing, and his throat had healed enough to cough up bloody phlegm, then speak.

“This isn’t Teach, yoi.” A shaky hand gestured at his torso, and Whitebeard caught it. His huge hand gripped Marco’s with precision and gentleness, and Marco was crying again. God, he had missed this. It had hurt like nothing else in the world, losing his father the first time around. Marco knew, with sudden clarity, that if he were to lose Whitebeard again this time around, he would not survive it.

Pushing the thought aside, Marco did his best to focus. He had one last mission, one last message before he let fate take its course.

“Ace,” he whispered, the torso behind him jumping in surprise, then crowding closer. “Don’t go after him. Swear to me. Don’t go after Teach.”

“What—? But he—!”

“Pops, don’t let him, or anyone, go.”

Whitebeard, quiet, watched Marco. Scanned his blood-bathed body up and down, saw the broken bones, saw the complete loss of strength that could not have possibly all come from such a short battle, even against Teach. Stared at the black spot on Marco’s stomach.

“Oh my son,” he said, sounding sad, so sad. Marco had only ever heard Pops sound like this once before, delivering the worst news to Marco on the eve of the Paramount War. How his eyes could still produce tears, Marco didn’t know, but everything was going blurry anyways. Ace’s breath above him too was sounding shaky. “What have you done to yourself?”

The last thing Marco remembered was Ace’s hands reluctantly relinquishing Marco’s body to Whitebeard, before Marco finally succumbed to his body’s aching and quaking, letting the darkness sweep back over him.

* * *

It took four days for Marco to regain his footing, and those four days were some of the worst Ace has felt since joining the Whitebeard pirates. Marco spent the first thirty-six hours fully unconscious, then the twenty-four after that swimming in and out of sleep. Fever, chills, shakes, seizing, bloody spittle—they have all taken him at some point or another. The medical crew did their best with each new symptom that arose, but were clearly scrambling.

The reason was Marco’s constitution. The first division commander had quite literally never been examined by any of the doctors, at least not in any way that went deeper than a cursory look at a patch of skin that blue flames patched up, faster than they could blink. This time, with what looked like the entire backlog of wounds from his decades-long stint as a Whitebeard pirate caught up to Marco, and with no magical healing quickly resolving them, the doctors were having a hard time working with or even around the flames.

Ace kept vigil by Marco’s bedside as often as he could. Pops had honored Marco’s wishes and formally ordered every pirate under his command to stand down, and let the mutineer escape. Despite knowing both Marco and Pops must have had good reason, Ace was hardly the kind of person to take that lying down. Not when one of the people he treasured most had been beaten within an inch of his life, and another was barely pulled back from the brink of death. So select members of Division Two (along with select members of divisions three through fourteen, not to mention all the angry members of Division One baying for Teach’s blood, if they were going to be honest) were discretely sent on reconnaissance, keeping an eye out for important developments while Ace and the other commanders waited in frustration, guarding homebase.

(It would constitute as some kind of betrayal, if everybody didn’t already know that _Pops_ already knew about them, and was letting them run the recon anyways.)

At least Ace always had company. Thatch had woken up only hours after the whole incident. Marco’s flames were no joke—not only patching up cut and torn arteries, but also re-infusing the man with blood. He had barely needed a transfusion. The doctors ordered him to stay in bed for at least three days, however, to monitor his healing.

At first, Ace and Thatch joked around in that medbay, the unspoken agreement between them that they wanted to bring as much positive energy to the room as they could. Jokes to soothe the perpetual pained furrow in Marco’s brow, laughter to ease Marco’s clenched fists.

It couldn’t last that long, though. Ace was honestly surprised that Thatch held out for as long as he did, not asking the questions that were surely burning him up from the inside.

“Hey Ace?” Thatch said, in the afternoon of day two. The sun was out but the Moby had sailed into a stretch of fog, so soft white light scattered in through the windows. It made Marco look practically angelic, unassuming and the opposite of danger. “Tell me the truth. I almost died, didn’t I?”

With keeping Thatch stable as priority, the doctors had initially told Thatch the wound had not been too deep. And thanks to Marco’s flames, there was no evidence that proved otherwise. Ace had seen Thatch frowning throughout the day though, like there were pieces of this puzzle that didn’t really make sense

(Ace knew exactly how Thatch felt. He and Jozu had given Pops a rundown of the events preceding Marco’s showdown with Teach, but only he and Jozu really understood how unnerving it had been, to see Marco so gone to pieces on such a peaceful evening.)

Ace wouldn’t lie to Thatch, but he also didn’t think Thatch meant that as a literal question. His silence was as good an answer as any, and one of Thatch’s hands came up to grip his own shoulder and back, where Teach’s knife had gone in.

“Bastard came at me from the back,” Thatch snarled. He looked equal parts incensed and humiliated. “A mutineer and a coward. I remember feeling it go in. I remember thinking I wouldn’t survive this.”

“I’m glad you did,” Ace said fervently. Thatch shot him a grateful look that fluttered down onto Marco. Then he just looked sad. 

“Marco saved me. It felt so warm, and I felt so protected. He saved my life and almost lost his own.”

There was something in Thatch’s eyes at the moment that reminded Ace, quite suddenly, of Sabo. The way the blond would scold Ace after a particularly harrowing fight, when Ace once again refused to back down, keeping his brothers behind him. Beyond the hot rush of blood to his head, Ace sometimes thought about it like growing wings—two great stretches of plumage flung out behind him, shielding whoever’s in between.

Ace looked down at Marco, the blue feathers forming and dying around that hole on his stomach. Marco probably couldn’t form his wings now, no matter how hard he tried.

“If he were conscious,” Ace said, “he would probably tell you, what are families for?” 

“If he were conscious,” Thatch snorted, “I would just beat him back unconscious again, for pulling a stunt like this.”

“Get in line,” Ace replied absently. Hands seemingly moving beyond his control, Ace’s fingers splayed out against Marco’s abdominal muscles. Then, he turned them to fire. Some time ago, when an unfortunate stretch of sleepless nights and an unfortunate dose of seawater rendered Marco soggy and stumbling during a mission, they had found out that Ace’s flames did not hurt Marco—in fact the opposite. Ace bolstered his healing and speed enough for them to finish that final fight in seconds, _and_ for Marco to fly them both home afterwards. Ace quite liked the way he could literally set Marco aflame, and since then, would sneak up on a tense-looking Marco and laugh when the other commander burst into a ball of blue, returning to human form with an exasperated, but more relaxed expression on his face.

Now, though—right now, Ace’s fire translated into blue, translated into a center of gravity that kept the blue from rippling out to Marco’s visible wounds. The casts were left on his legs, and the great scores of scraped-up skin on Marco’s torso and left bicep stayed an eyesore.

“It’s like something’s eating his energy,” Ace said, frustration clear in his voice. He pushed his own fire up, threatening the white sheets he sat on with charred patches, but Marco still was not stirring. “This—This weird _hole_.”

It’s cold to the touch, and weirdly textured. Like petting microscopic scales. The longer Ace’s thumb lingered on it, the more Ace felt unsettled.

“And we’re sure it’s not Teach?” Thatch murmured from his bed, staring where Ace was staring. Ace shook his head.

“Pops knows something.” This was the first time Ace had voiced this suspicion, and when he turned to Thatch, he let his hand fall down to grip Marco’s wrist. Lightly, for it felt so delicate.

“He usually does,” Thatch replied, tone deliberately light. “You think he knows how to fix this?”

Frowning, Ace thought back through all the visitors Marco had unconsciously received in the past two days, Pops himself showing up three times, watching the disappearing blue flames each time like everyone else—but instead of looking troubled, he had just looked woeful.

Ace was afraid that, if there was anything Whitebeard knew, it was that whatever’s been done to Marco couldn’t be fixed.

“I don’t know.” Thatch sighed sharply, like he knew there was something Ace wasn’t saying. “But I get the feeling that whatever’s happening has to do with me, too.”

“Why?”

_Don’t go after him. Swear to me. Don’t go after Teach._

“I think,” Ace said slowly, “Teach knows something about me, and would use it against me. Marco said no one should go after him, but he specifically told me not to.”

Twice. _Jozu, do_ not _let Ace go on alone._

“What could Teach possibly have on you?” Thatch asked carefully. They both heard the unspoken part: _And do the rest of us know?_

Well, there was really only one thing about Ace, wasn’t there? He roamed the seas, fought his battles and won his wars, found a family—but none of that seemed to matter, in face of his one large secret.

Marco knew. Ace had told him almost right after telling Pops—just because Pops was fine with it didn’t mean that anybody in the crew would be fine with it. And whereas Ace and Thatch got along famously, and everybody else became great friends to Ace, Marco had always been the kindest. Ace really couldn’t imagine telling anybody else, and, well, if the good Marco had reacted negatively, Ace would have a pretty good guess of how everyone else would react.

Ace would never forget that night, a week after he was named commander of the second division. He would never forget the golden light of the gaslamp, how warm Marco looked in the reddish palette. The question, _have you told Pops?_ Then the gentle utterance, _that must be a weight off your mind, then._ The strength of Marco’s arms around him. The scent of Marco. Ace knew that Marco knew the significance of such a secret, even if Marco didn’t linger on it. Ace knew that Marco would do anything to help Ace keep this secret.

Ace clenched his teeth.

“Wake up, you jerk,” he said to Marco. Ace hated feeling this vulnerable, this close to shattering. It reminded him of cliffs overlooking the ocean, of lost brothers and their last letters. The same questions from when Sabo died surfaced in Ace’s mind now: _is this my fault? Could I have prevented this? Did I kill you?_ “Please don’t die. Not for this.”

_Not for me._

* * *

“How are you feeling, son?”

More earnestly than he had with the doctors, Marco checked himself over. Aches and bruises like he hadn’t felt in decades, and he still couldn’t walk quite right. Voice still scratchy, and tremors still persisted. But it was all healing much faster now.

He told Pops as much, and was unsurprised when Whitebeard’s gaze honed in on his abdomen. By the evening of the third day in bed, the black spot had gone, and blue flames began tentatively rekindling along Marco’s body. He figured that was the first set of debts—for the first jump back in time, then saving Thatch’s life, then preventing Ace from going off after Teach—paid. Marco still felt the cold, but it was no longer as nauseating as it had once been.

“I’ve seen that mark before,” Whitebeard said, the great rumble of his voice echoing in the otherwise empty chamber. Even Thatch had been sent out, no longer bed-bound. Marco shifted on his sheets. “On an island. The islanders called it the Black Death, because no one with it survived hours past its appearance. It only disappears once the person is dead.”

“It’s not a disease yoi,” Marco said. Whitebeard snorted around his NG tube.

“I figured. More like a curse.”

Scratching the back of his neck, Marco sighed. He wished he had more time between regaining consciousness and Pops visiting, so he could figure out the best course of action. If there was anyone he could tell, it was Pops, and the creature had said there were no taboos about telling the truth. But would it adversely affect Pops or the crew in any way? 

“What else have you figured out?”

It was unlike Marco to be circumspect like this, and Whitebeard knew it. But he indulged his son anyways, much to Marco’s gratitude.

“I only have some pieces, and I’m not jumping to conclusions.” _Unlike certain young ones_ , Whitebeard’s tone heavily implied, and Marco chuckled. Felt his tender ribs jostle. “But I know something tipped you off about Teach, though no one knows what. Jozu had thought it was a call, but if it was, it didn't come from this ship. I know you were substantially injured before you got here, but not from a fight. I know you don’t want anyone pursuing Teach—not because you want to go after him yourself, but because you think he’s genuinely bad news, even for the other commanders. Or Ace.”

“Ace is strong, but Teach fights dirty. None of us should underestimate him,” Marco insisted, “including you, Pops.” 

“I’ve been on these seas far longer than you, Marco,” Whitebeard said, almost admonishingly, “I’ve seen deals made of knowledge for a price. If that’s what the black mark is, you’ve traded your life to know something. Is that something Teach?”

“...Yes, in a fashion.” With a sigh, Marco pinched the bridge of his nose. “Trust me Pops, there’s nothing I would like more than to tell you the truth yoi. But everything is too uncertain right now.”

“ _Gurarara_ , I know a thing or two about patience. Tell me when you’re ready.” Whitebeard’s hand rested warm on Marco’s shoulder, and Marco knew he was giving way too much away, if he started tearing up every time Pops touched him. But he couldn’t help it. He blinked the tears away, and Whitebeard didn’t comment, just asked, “and what about Ace?”

If he couldn’t even tell Pops, Marco knew it was a worse idea to tell Ace the truth. Even though at Marineford, in the little moment of hope they managed to carve out, Ace and Marco and everybody else had been fully prepared for Whitebeard’s death, it would be different for Ace to learn about it in this time, when Ace still had a thousand choices ahead of him. He wouldn’t see it as the unbreakable bonds of family, just as his own fault.

But, “I’ll talk to him.” Marco could tell him a moderated version of the truth, step in at those pivotal moments that would change the tides of time.

Coldness tugged in his belly like a snide reminder, but Marco just called forth a burst of phoenix fire to douse it, gritting his teeth.

“I haven’t seen you this unbalanced in ages, Marco,” Whitebeard said, and before Marco could grimace in apology, Pops laughed, warm and fond. Marco felt the full-body tremors through Pop’s hand. “It’s nostalgic! You’re the most capable man I know, but remember that I’m still your father. You can come to me for anything.”

So utterly touched, Marco huffed out a watery laugh.

“Advice?” he asked. “You’re right, I am… unbalanced. And unmoored. I feel–” _Like a liar, a cheat, and a dirty hypocrite._ “–conflicted. How do I know I’m doing the right thing?”

Whitebeard’s hand left his shoulder, dragging down until it was just one finger tip against Marco’s heart. He touched the ink of Marco’s tattoo, and it was the warmest Marco’s felt since arriving in this time.

“You know what you made that deal to protect,” Whitebeard spoke, “and I know you kid—it’s damn worth it. Hold true to that.”

“But what if he hates me for it?” Marco whispered. This was a fear he hadn’t even acknowledged, but now that he’s spoken it—it was terrifying. He looked up. “What if you hate me?”

“I will never hate you, my son.” Marco knew this to be fact before he even asked the question, but he still wanted to hear it. It was unbelievably comforting, and he memorized, memorized. “And as for _him_ …”

Marco stiffened, felt the gradual heating of his ears the longer Pops just smirked at him. He tried to tell himself, this wasn’t new. Pops already knew, had already given him shit for it, way back when. But that didn’t make it anymore embarrassing.

“ _Gurarara_!” A hearty slap on Marco’s back, because Pops was many things but he wasn’t a coddler. At least not for bedridden patients. Marco was sure he was going to start coughing up blood again when he heard Whitebeard’s actual answer, “well I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

This, delivered with the most lackadaisical shrug that looked _ridiculous_ on Whitebeard’s stately frame, was the funniest thing Marco’s ever seen in his _life_. That’s right—things had gotten so dark and worrisome toward the end there that Marco had almost forgotten this, Whitebeard’s particular brand of parenting. The Yonko could give the most sagely advice and piercing observations, but when it came to interpersonal relationships, Edward Newgate had the easy faith that things will just work out. People either get along, or they don’t. That didn’t mean family couldn’t form around that. He was a man who conducted his relationships simply. So Pops was useless, as far as resolving relationship disputes go, but that didn’t mean he was _wrong_.

“That’s right, Pops.” Marco saw the happy flash of teeth at the moniker, and loved, with all his heart, this man who dedicated his life to a bunch of shitty children, who could be so happy with the simple fact that they call him father. “I’m sure it will.”

Because, despite all odds, he had survived the first great calamity, and even saved Thatch’s life. A sapling of hope was growing in his heart, thanks to this talk with Whitebeard. As much as he was still haunted by the thought that Ace and Whitebeard wouldn’t appreciate this, would end up hating him for this—no. He knew it was all worth it. He would hold true to what he wanted, just like Pops said.

“Thanks, Pops,” he said, the most earnest way he knew. “This really helped. Now tell me what’s happening with _your_ health, and don’t think you can omit anything…”

* * *

Thatch prepared all of Marco’s favorite foods, and pointedly turned away every time he served one of them to Marco.

“Tell that inconsiderate asshole,” he growled at Izo, who sat right beside Marco, “that he’d better eat every single speck on that plate, and the sauce is spiced yogurt, from that one South Blue island he likes so much.”

“Thanks Thatch,” Marco tried, “this is delicious.”

“Tell that careless jerk I’m not speaking to him!”

“Hey Marco,” Izo duly reported, “Thatch isn’t speaking to you. And he called you a jerk.”

“Well will you tell Thatch that the food is amazing,” Marco sighed. He watched Thatch’s furious movements, chopping up mangos with his back toward Marco. He eyed the visible edge of the bandaging. “And will you tell Thatch that I hope he’s feeding himself as good as he’s feeding me?”

Thatch paused, and conspicuously sniffled.

“Just because I’m glad you’re okay doesn’t mean I’m not angry with you, okay?!” he yelled, voice nasally.

“Yes, yes,” Marco placated. With a snort, Izo got up and brought a box of tissues over to Thatch. Marco took the moment to spoon more of the delicious dish into his mouth. It was nutty and high with protein, colored beautifully with berries and fruits in deep reds and blues. He was already feeling more charged up with every bite.

“Hey Marco,” Izo called, “speaking of people angry with you…”

The presence just outside the door of the galley whisked itself away. Really hoping that Ace did a more covert job of things out on missions, Marco pulled himself to his feet. His stance was steady, but he really wasn’t going to be doing much running after disappearing crewmates today.

“To put myself in the shoes of a twenty-something-year-old, emotionally-constipated fool,” Izo drawled, “I would probably ask myself, _where’s the last place Marco would look for me_?”

“Got it,” Marco muttered, headed for the door, “thanks Izo.”

“Hey, Marco.”

This third time Izo called for him, Izo’s voice was suddenly thick with emotion. Abruptly, Marco realized how close to death he had actually come, to have worried all of his siblings this much.

He swooped in and wrapped both Izo and Thatch in a tight embrace. Izo’s hands clung to his open shirtfront.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Izo murmured. Thatch was openly bawling now, and hugged the two of them even harder.

“Me too,” Marco told them, “I’m so happy to be back.”

* * *

Marco caught up with Ace back in the infirmary. It was a cool afternoon, the sun out but not too keen on charring—much of the crew had actually split and gone to three islands nearby for a day out, with the Moby anchored equidistant from them. Ace was sprawled on a chair beside Marco’s sickbed, looking comfortable, like he had spent the past four days parked in that exact spot. His backpack was stuffed full, sitting like a green spotted guard dog at his feet.

Marco shut the door, and stayed to block it from Ace’s reach.

“Are you mad at me too?” Marco started lightly.

“More mad at Teach.” Though Ace’s expression was placid, they both knew how serious he was. “Just slightly mad at you.”

With a steadying breath, Marco made himself remember Ace, last time, practically spitting with anger just before he left Whitebeard’s ship. Before that mark on his back disappeared into the horizon. The last time Marco would see him whole and free of wounds, that was a painful memory, also because Marco had just let him go without giving chase.

“Because I won’t let you chase after him?” Marco asked, Ace’s voice like a firebrand inside his mind. “Because he betrayed Thatch and Pops, after living under Pop’s protection for so long? Because he tarnished our father’s name?”

“If you know,” Ace said through gritted teeth, fists clenched so hard they were shaking, “then why would you—”

“Because I know things that you don’t,” Marco answered bluntly. “I know how much this matters to you, Ace—”

“No, you don’t—”

“I _know_.” Never one for yelling matches or interruptive arguments, Marco was surely startling to Ace now, being so suddenly persistent. But he had the weight of history at his back, after all, and he did in fact _know_. “I know exactly how much you’re willing to sacrifice for this Ace, and I’m trying to keep you from doing that.”

Ace had long since straightened up from his lounging, and now tipped his head forward, hair falling into his eyes.

“...You too.”

“What?”

“He betrayed Thatch and Pops,” Ace spoke louder, “and he betrayed you too. He was under my division, and he almost _killed_ you.” He snapped his head up, and Marco met his wild gaze. “Aren’t you _pissed_?”

With history at his back, Marco also had years’ worth of repressed _fury_ , sitting deep within his chest. He felt some of that escape, like smoke out a hatch, wrapping around and straightening his spine.

“Believe me, Ace,” he said, chilly as the stone inside his stomach, “there is nothing I’d like more in the world than to slit that bastard’s throat. He betrayed _family_ , and he wants to destroy the world, everything that people spent their lives building and protecting. He’s a rabid animal that needs to be put down.”

“...Are you planning to kill him?”

The most frustrating thing was, Marco was fairly sure he couldn’t. Years of sailing with the bastard, knowledge that he crushed an island and Ace along with it, witnessing him murder Pops at Marineford, and then finally going against him during the Payback Wars—Teach was something that needed to be eradicated before he got too monstrous, but both time and the trade-off to come back were working against Marco. The phoenix was still accessible to Marco, but he knew, based on the past four days alone, how easily debilitated he was, now. And any fight against Teach was not only one of strength, but also of endurance, against every dirty trick Teach was sure to have put in place in preparation. Not to mention the amount of life force the pebble would eat if Teach was killed before his time.

No, Marco had _tried_ , but he couldn’t be the one to kill Teach.

“I can’t.” It was the hardest thing to admit, especially considering how much he knew Ace looked up to his strength, the great protection it offered. Sure enough, Ace looked stricken to the bone. “Not anymore. Someone stronger than me will have to do it.”

“That’s why I’ll—!” 

“Ace, _no_.” 

“Pops said you made a deal for knowledge,” Ace said bitterly. “Is that what you know? My fated failure? That if I go after Teach, I will lose?”

“I know that I will lose you,” Marco snapped, “and I can’t—” _Not again._

“I am more than my fate,” Ace hissed, and Marco knew, behind the anger, there was a world of hurt. Twenty years of battling the heaviest fate dealt to him.

 _This isn’t fate, this is doom_ , Marco wanted to say, but that was altogether too dramatic, too useless of path to go down. Things would just quickly devolve into Ace insisting he could do it and Marco insisting he couldn’t, and that wasn’t what Marco came back for at all.

But what was Marco to say? In so many ways, he _was_ fighting fate. Not just fate, but the wills of every life he had already changed by taking this deal. Ace had made his decision to pursue Teach, back then, and the Whitebeard pirates had made theirs to wage war against the government. Pops had made his decision to die on the battlefield that day—he had known he would going in, had pulled Marco aside to say as much. Sure, Marco was acting from a place of tremendous pain and loss, but did that at all justify this trampling over his family’s wills? They were all _pirates_ , for fuck’s sake, all just doing their best to gather up as much freedom as possible, in a world that was so keen on ripping it away. None of them were afraid of death.

(Marco was just afraid of loss. That horrible, hollow loneliness of knowing you’ve lost the thing most precious in your life.)

“...Marco?” 

Marco had been silent for a beat too long—Ace looked torn between anger and worry. With an unsteady exhale, Marco unclenched his stiff hands, his tight shoulder muscles. No, he didn’t come back just to have it all play out the same, tragic way. He’s in too deep; he’ll play the game yet.

And besides, there was one thing he knew he wanted to do for Ace, no matter what.

“You can hate me for this,” he said quietly, continuing quickly when it looked like Ace was about to say something. “But please, trust that I have a plan. We’ll get him, after. I swear to you on this tattoo.”

To his surprise, Ace suddenly pressed forward, until he was only inches from Marco’s face. His complete faith in Ace meant that Marco’s guard was totally down, Ace stepping into his space easily, palm moving up to hold against Marco’s sternum. Half his hand touched bandages and half touched ink.

“I _hate_ this feeling.” Ace’s face was twisted with anguish, and Marco’s arms faltered helplessly at his sides. “Like I can’t protect you, or Thatch, or anyone. Like you won’t let me. But I _know—_ ” The snarl of anger was a lot more familiar on Ace, and funnily enough, comforted Marco quite a lot. "—whatever you’re doing, you’re doing for Pops, aren’t you? And me, and everybody else. So fine, do it, swear that we will protect our family against Teach. But you’d better be counting yourself as one of the protected, you hear me?!”

One of Marco’s hands slowly came up, fingers carding through Ace’s hair. It was soft. Smelled of salt and hibiscus. He curled his palms around the back of Ace’s head, and pulled gently forward, until Ace’s breath trailed hot against the hollow of Marco’s throat. Marco counted those breaths, that warm proof of life.

“Thank you,” Marco said, “for loving me.”

The breathing stuttered, stopped. Started back up again, with higher frequency.

“You know you’re the only one who keeps—” Ace’s back was seizing in pulses, like the worst hiccups in the world. Marco held him tighter, felt tears, hot as fire, trickling between where their skin met. “—keeps making me cry like this.”

Marco remembered the last time he held Ace like this, with the younger commander choking down tears. He counted his blessings, to be able to have this again.

“I’m a real bastard, aren’t I?” Warm arms, first wooden with repression against Marco’s chest, suddenly loosened and went all the way around Marco’s waist. Tender bodies folding into one another. “How in the world do you put up with me?”

“I have to,” Ace mumbled, “you’ve got the softest mattress in the whole fleet.”

Marco’s chuckling almost masked the addition: “and you never kick me out if I fall asleep on it.”

“Speaking of falling asleep,” Marco teased. Sure enough, there was no answer, just the undignified sound of snoring through a stuffy nose. He held onto the man in his arms, though, not quite ready to let go yet.

The next morning, after another healthy healing feast from Thatch, Marco found Ace up on the Moby’s crossbeams, frowning at the sunset. A flash of blue feathers, and Marco’s perched beside him. Marco was back up to around 80%, energy-wise.

“We’ll get him, _after_ , you said.” Ace’s hand played idly with the long golden chain of fire, phasing into flames himself. “After what?”

* * *

“Alabasta?”

“I hear it’s nice this time of year,” Vista said.

“Sure,” Haruta snorted, “if you’re going for the great view of a civil war.”

“Or you like being burned to a crisp,” Namur grumbled.

“Road trip?” Ace asked, trying to sound casual because Alabasta was not far off from where all the Whitebeard scouts tracked Teach to be headed. Marco clearly wasn’t fooled though, if the dry look he shot Ace across the conference room was any indication.

“We have good intel a certain rookie crew is headed there,” Marco explained, “with their missing princess, no less.”

“And you want to… fight this rookie?” Rakuyo guessed. 

“Recruit him?”

“Just meet him, yoi,” Marco answered firmly. Then added, “with Ace.”

“So you want to run off, just the two of you, huh?” Not even attempting to be subtle, Thatch wiggled his eyebrows at Ace, and Ace elbowed him in revenge. Marco cocked his head, expression noncommittal.

“We’ll travel faster by ourselves. Roundtrip shouldn’t take any more than a month, really. We’ll be back before the Moby’s even reached St. Rose.”

At this, all the commanders looked up for Pop’s decision. Looming above them all, Whitebeard stared imposingly down at his children, the soft hisses and clicks of the medical apparatus sitting around him filling out his presence.

“A certain rookie, huh?” Whitebeard rumbled. Ace shrugged, as clueless as anybody else, while Marco, grinning, drew out a folded-up wanted poster from his pocket.

“Does Strawhat ring a bell?”

* * *

“I can’t believe I’ll get to see Luffy again!” Ace laughed, vivid with joy. He was practically skipping up and down the deck, waiting for Marco to exchange some private words with Pops and pack his things. Then they were headed out. To see _Luffy_.

“I can’t believe you’ll get to introduce your brother to _Marco_ ,” Thatch said, smirking. Ace’s face didn’t run red without his control anymore, not since eating the Mera Mera no Mi, but he knew, somehow, Thatch could read the embarrassment on his face. “What are you going to introduce him as, huh?”

“My friend Marco. He's a bird sometimes,” Ace replied primly.

“Boring.” The sunlight was dewy with the morning, and the two of them leaned against the sides of the ship, basking in its warmth. Around them, the crew milled about, munching on breakfast and getting ready to set sail. “Hey, you’ll have time on the road by your lonesomes. Perfect chance to, y’know, get your game on, if you know what I mean.” 

“No, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Start the shimmy shakes, if you know what I mean.”

“Okay, that’s enough—”

“Diddle on the dance floor, if you know what—”

“ _Hiken—_ ”

“ _Okay_ , geez, yikes, be cool about it why don’t you.” Thatch was moving about with far too much energy for Ace’s tastes, considering the man had just been stabbed several days prior. While he knew the chef meant the best, it was still like, four hundred different levels of embarrassment to be ribbed like this. One of the most highly regrettable moments of Ace’s life (including events like inopportune disrobings, projectile feces of assorted species, and vomit contents that exposed a little too much for comfort) was the night he got so wasted on Fossa’s homebrew (a poison he called griva, or lunch) that he confessed his undying lust for Marco to Thatch. Never mind that Ace remembered every humiliating second of it, Thatch spend the entire next morning gleefully whispering back the things Ace said to him: _I mean obviously, his fucking abs and pecs dude, like I’m shredded, but he’s_ formed _, y’know?_ and _Underrated calves? They’re so beautiful? I know he knows it_ and _I mean I’d do it, I’d lick his scalp. It’s a sexy scalp_.

At least Thatch didn’t mock the _other_ things he said. The things that Ace also clearly said: _he just gets things, you know? Isn’t it amazing when he does that?_ and _Such a commanding presence, I feel so taken care of_ and _He’s honestly just the kindest, gentlest man I’ve ever met. I don’t deserve this, y’know? What did I ever do to deserve him in my life?_

(Okay, so maybe he confessed a little more than undying lust. But whatever. Until Thatch really called him out on it, none of it happened.)

“Hey.”

Thatch had his elbows braced on the railing like Ace did, but faced inward rather than outward. The crook of his left arm was still a little stiff from the bandaging underneath. He looked on Ace’s face with something like an understanding grin.

“I mean it, kid,” he said, reaching over and digging his knuckles into Ace’s scalp a little. “He’s never gonna know if you don’t say anything. And before you say it’s better he doesn’t know—”

“Oh he knows,” Ace muttered, leaning further out until the sea was spitting salt in his face.

There was a pause. Then Thatch’s hand snatched the collar of Ace’s shirt and hauled him up.

“What?!” he squawked. “You confessed?”

“Yes? No? Not really?” Scowling, Ace scratched the back of his head. “But that doesn’t matter. He knows.”

Thatch’s eyes narrowed. “He knows what, exactly?”

“That I lo–” Choking off, Ace pried Thatch’s fingers off and contemplated throwing himself into the ocean. Contemplated throwing Thatch into the ocean. Contemplated turning into a ball of semi-sentient flames for the rest of the day and maybe the day after that, just to really flee. And for icing on top of the cake, he banged his funny bone against the railing. As Ace whimpered over his buzzing limb, he choked out, “he literally said, ‘thank you for loving me,’ okay? Now does that sound more like a ‘hey, let’s make out on a beach and get married at sunrise’ or more like ‘sorry kid, it’s not you it’s me?’”

“Oh damn.” Nothing was ever good when Thatch went quiet like that, not around Ace. “He really– he really said that?” Clearing his throat, Thatch asked, “what happened after?”

Ace rolled his eyes. “He held me in his arms as I sobbed myself to sleep.”

“...Dear god, really? Like, _really_?”

“So won’t you shut up about it already?”

“Yeah man– hey, my bad, I didn’t know—”

“It’s fine,” Ace interrupted the completely unwarranted apology, already regretting telling Thatch. He didn’t mean to say the exact things he did, and he certainly wasn’t looking for someone to affirm his nagging fear that he’s already been rejected before he even got around to confessing. But now that it’s done, he’s a bit raw in the feelings, like a punchline had managed to bounce back to score a right hook on him.

Sure, he didn’t _technically_ confess, but Ace really figured all that blubbering and talk about protecting _you_ , Marco, getting justice for _you_ , Marco, must’ve been enough. Ace hadn’t even been trying, but Marco saw through it, he guessed. Saw through that terribly embarrassing crush (or more) and went ahead and let Ace down in the most tender, thoughtful Marco way.

“Fuck,” he said. “ _Fuck_.”

“Go ahead and let that out man,” Thatch encouraged. 

“ _FUCK!_ ”

“Am I interrupting?”

The two wheeled around, Thatch looking guilty and Ace combative. And there stood Marco in all his glory. His stance wasn’t as relaxed as it had been before the fight with Teach, but the charismatic aura was still there, in the slouch of his shoulders and the slope of his neck. Ace wanted to be upset with him, but upon waking up in Marco’s bed (the one in his private room, not the one in the medbay, which meant Marco, with all his injuries, had carried Ace down the entire length of the Moby, all because Ace made one joke about the soft mattress), Ace had decided to play it cool, refusing to let the heartbreak even take shape. _The doctor’s gonna be pretty pissed I put you out of your bed_. And Marco had laughed, _well this doctor said it was fine. I’ve slept enough already anyways, yoi._ He guessed that’s what he and Marco were doing, now. Now that they were on a trip across the oceans together, all by themselves.

Fuck.

“...Okay, you two are being strange,” Marco said when neither Ace nor Thatch replied. His gaze honed in on Ace, knapsack dangling from one hand. “I thought you wanted to leave before anchors up. I’m good to go if you are.”

“Marco…” Thatch blinked rapidly at his side, and Marco tilted his head inquisitively at him. Ace swallowed. “Never mind. Yeah, I’m good to go.”

“...Alright, yoi. We can take the Striker.”

* * *

Though built to be a one-man ship, the Striker has born many passengers over the years. Ace knew the precise balance of the slim, sleek body, and with both intuition and practice, learned too the points of counterbalance and weight redistribution. Kids in general were the easiest to transport—lightweight and bouncy, so Ace could throw or nudge them in any direction to make the sailing smoother. Grown people were harder, more prone to arguments if Ace accidentally skimmed their legs against a reef or singed them with his fire. The worst was the time with Namur, who had been curious about the ride. The second and eighth divisions warred for a week as a result.

In all the years he’s ridden the Striker, Ace has never met anyone who fit on it as easily as Marco did. Not in terms of size, of course, for Marco’s height and weight were pretty standard as far as men went. Maybe it was because Marco knew how to fly. Or maybe it was Marco’s shared affinity for fire. Whatever the reason, Ace and Marco stepped their way around, between, and through each other on the narrow space with the synchronicity of ballroom dancers. Ace read the tides and adjusted his flames to push through or fall back; Marco wrapped fire and the winds around himself easy as pie, leaned whenever Ace leaned, breathed whenever Ace breathed.

Ace loved this practiced dance more than he was ever willing to admit, but today, as they crossed the seas dancing around each other, he had something else on his mind.

“Why this, all of a sudden?” Marco didn’t look too surprised by the question, glancing once at Ace, then back out to the stretch of blue. “Why are you taking me to visit my brother?”

Part of Ace balked at the implicit chaperoning Marco was doing. It’s perfectly true that, without Marco’s insistence to the contrary and diligent watchdogging, Ace would’ve run off after Teach at the earliest opportunity. And wasn’t it convenient, that Marco found the _one_ thing that could possibly occupy Ace’s attention more than righting the grievous wrong against his family?

“Sure, this is to distract you from Teach,” Marco answered easily enough. The answering burst of frustrated fire from Ace meant he had to adjust his stance, hand slipping a little ways down the Striker’s mast. They would unfurl the sails once they hit a path of favorable winds in another half hour or so. “But as far as ulterior motives go, that’s really minor yoi. I’m not planning anything, I just want you to see your brother again. I know you’ve missed him.”

Still tense with worry, Ace took a moment to gather his thoughts. Then asked, “does Luffy have anything to do with Teach?”

Marco grew solemn. “No. I swear to you he doesn’t.” _I wouldn’t put him in harm’s way like that_ , he didn’t say, but Ace certainly heard anyways.

“...You’ve been doing that a lot.” Relieved, Ace was now willing to change the subject. “Swearing things to me.”

“Whereas you’ve just been swearing,” Marco said, referring to the shouting on the Moby. He was smirking, but the look in his eyes was genuinely curious. “Want to tell me what happened?”

Outside of his conscious control, Ace started growling. “No, that was—I was just embarrassed, I guess.”

“About?”

“Weeping in your arms like some kind of swooning maiden!” he exclaimed. The fire that spread from his body, when Ace was embarrassed, took on a pinkish hue, which did nothing to mitigate his embarrassment. Marco knew, and laughed out loud at the sight, the bastard. His own blue flames danced over the one foot dangling far enough into the piloting seat.

“Haven’t I cried on you before? It’s equality, yoi.” With the sun putting color back in his face, Marco looked the best he’s been since the fight with Teach. The teasing smirk with that hooded stare was putting ridiculous palpitations in Ace’s heart. “Granted, I don’t think I’ve ever rubbed tears, snot, and drool on you with my _face_ …”

“ _God_. Why did I do that? I don’t even know how– it’s all your fault, you know.”

In front of them, a patch of ocean has grown dark, waves a little more tumultuous. A little pop of pressure in Ace’s ears told him something was coming from below.

“How is it my fault?” Marco asked lightly, watching the shadow in the sea too. It swelled higher, and higher, then burst open—a meter-long spread of sharp teeth and what looked like a hippopotamus jaw. Water cascaded, the crashing and splashing like the sound of ripping. Ace reacted within the millisecond, hopping up and driving one foot down, hard, on the back right edge of the Striker, tossing his whole weight into the sharp turn. Marco, in perfect tandem, went half-phoenix, one talon seizing the mast and his opposite wing cast out, countering Ace’s weight so the ship didn’t topple. The Striker dipped at an angle impossible to achieve, had Ace been alone, skirting around the beast.

Then, Ace tapped into a deeply buried part of him, the part that Ace so strongly associated with anger, but also the special kind of incendiary that warped the very fabric of the world around him. A low frequency buzzing boomed out around him, and with a glare from Ace, the sea king shivered, diving back under the waves.

“ _Thank you for loving me_ ,” Ace said in a high-pitch, nasally voice, continuing their conversation from just before, still entirely grumpy. “Why would you say that? What kind of asshole says something like that?” 

“Oh you’d be surprised yoi.”

Stepping back into their sailing positions, Ace gave Marco the side-eye. Then he sighed, a reluctant smile tugging across his lips.

“Hey, thank you.” Keeping one burning foot in the piloting seat, Ace turned and sat down on the front edge of the Striker, trusting Marco to keep them on the right path. Marco glanced down at him from the mast, surprised. “Honestly. I’m not an idiot, I know you’re looking out for me. Even though I act like I’m not grateful, I am.” 

From Ace’s vantage point, Marco’s eyes looked almost gold in the climbing morning light. One of Marco’s hands absently came up to touch his abdomen, the spot where the hole had opened up to eat all his flames.

“You’re a good man, Ace.” Despite a calm personality, Marco’s always known how to let loose and have fun with everybody else. He saved the terribly somber seriousness—like the one he was pulling now—for battles that were expected to take a toll on his crew. Ace listened attentively, hands clenched over the pulse beating double time in his wrists. _Man_ , Marco had said. Not kid, not boy. “I just want to give you everything you deserve.”

Where their eyes met, there seemed a deep well of unspoken sentiments. Ace stared at stared, frowning, like he could parse out every single one of Marco’s secrets if he just looked hard enough.

Marco looked away first. He pulled an eternal post from his pocket, giving it a thoughtful look and a shake.

“Five days to Alabasta yoi,” he said lightly, like it was just another normal day, and nothing strange was in the air. “Think you can power the Striker for that long?”

“Please,” Ace scoffed, grinning toothily. “When has my fire ever stopped burning?”

* * *

Road tripping with Ace was messing with Marco’s mind. Just a bit.

They had sailed straight north, and by noon of the first day, the Striker’s streamline speed and Ace’s tenacious burning brought them straight into the Calm Belt. Their destination wasn’t that far in—a small island by the name of Lott. Boon Lott was a dark-skinned woman with a huge smile and flawless teeth; she was always happy to receive visitors in her family’s ancestral endangered animal sanctuary, so far out in the middle of dangerous waters.

There, Boon introduced them to a giant sailfish named Steve. He was an orphan, rescued from a capsized pirate ship, brought over from Paradise. Once mature, sailfish homing beacons kicked in, and the clever creatures knew just where the little nooks and tunnels throughout the Red Line were. Long and sleek with an incredibly flexible spine, Steve would be the perfect guide to get them to Paradise by nightfall. All Steve needed was a little help opening and closing the prosthetic sail-fin on his back at the proper times, so won’t Ace and Marco help bring him home?

Even better, because they weren’t sailing all the way down to Fishman Island, Ace and Marco could just get a thin bubble coating on the Striker. The coating technicians on Pops’ crew had handed Ace a prototype they called Insta-Coat before departure, with strict warnings to the anchor that the coating would only last 40 hours. That was more than enough, of course, and after a hearty vegetarian lunch (cooked by Boon, with the aid of rare spices Marco brought as gifts), they were once again on their way. Steve did all the work, pulling them through the foaming waters. Having made a pact not to light their respective flames (they burned oxygen, after all, which came in very limited supplies in the bubble), all Ace and Marco had to do was sit and relax.

As Ace alternated between ogling the underwater spectacles outside and knocking his head back asleep with a leftover sandwich halfway in his mouth, Marco watched. It had been two years since the Paramount War for him—two violent, lonely years, where he lost his friends one by one, group by group, until he ended up all by himself in a land he’s never set foot on but he’d sworn to protect. This whole day had been… idyllic, in a way Marco was wholly unprepared for. Sunlight trickled down a pleasant, hazy blue, and everything smelled like warm salt. 

Ace had fallen asleep again, this time looking more like a proper nap instead of a narcolepsy attack. His head was tilted at an angle, and drool threatened to drip out one corner of his open mouth. What a completely different image than the pretty manners he put on for Boon. But it wasn’t like one was more authentic than the other—Ace had always been a hilarious juxtaposition of polite words and wild child.

The night before, Thatch had come to find Marco in Marco’s bedroom. Looking unsurprised to see Ace occupying the bed, he beckoned Marco outside. Marco, who had been reading his own log in an attempt to remind himself of the relevant events in this time, silently pushed back his chair from the desk and followed Thatch to the moonlit deck.

 _I was cooking lunch today_ , Thatch began, apropos to nothing, as he lit up an herbal cigarette. He had confessed to Marco once that he picked up smoking in an attempt to impress girls at the tender age of fourteen, and never managed to wean himself off the habit—only switched from tastebud-dulling tar and nicotine to fragrant herbs. He spoke lowly, voice smokey. _And I looked down at my knife, the food I was prepping, the floor of the Moby—I realized how close I’d come to losing all of that. My sous chef, my friends, my family, everything._

There was the loud creak of wood, and it took a second for Marco to realize it had not come from the general swaying of the ship, but the banister beneath the tight grip of his fist. Thatch glanced at Marco, blew a smoke ring.

 _So thank you_ , he said with a wry smile. Years of knowledge between them meant that Marco understood Thatch’s self-deprecation in that moment, for not having given his gratitude sooner. _For saving my life, again._

 _Who’s counting?_ Marco said faintly. His brother appeared like a specter under the moonlight, silvery and vaporizing into smoke. With the sudden burst of panic, Marco reached out and grabbed Thatch’s forearm, needing to feel the tangibility of flesh and blood. Proof that he’s made a difference here.

Thatch gripped Marco’s arm back, now with a serious-looking set to his mouth.

 _Look, we’ve known each other for ages_ , he began. _I know you, and I know when you’re acting strange. These past couple of days, you’ve been walking around here, looking like the sorriest bastard in the world. I thought you were like me, at first, thinking about how you might’ve lost everything here, after a brush with death—but that’s not right, is it? You’re walking around here, looking like everything’s a ghost to you, like you can’t quite believe we’re all here._

Swallowing a dry throat, Marco looked down at his feet. On the worn and familiar deck of the Moby, that had been so decimated from the Paramount War. The swirls in the wood that Marco could draw in his sleep.

 _See? You’re doing it again_. Thatch’s voice was gentle, but his grip firm as he pulled Marco into his arms. _I’m a dumbass, so I have zero idea what’s going on, not until you tell me yourself. But right now? I feel like you need to hear this, you’re here. This is real. We’re all real._

Marco was too choked up to reply, but Thatch seemed to understand. Just held his brother close as Marco’s palms swept across the breadth of Thatch’s back.

 _Promise me you’ll remember,_ Thatch said that night. _Pop’s got me packing non-perishables for two in all of you and Ace’s favorite flavors, so I know you’re headed out somewhere. But promise me you’ll take care of yourself, and remember that we’re really here. I swear to you, we’re really here._

And so Marco told himself, sitting across from Ace with the quiet thrum of the ocean all around them, _he’s really here. He’s really here._  He closed his own eyes, summoning memories: Pop’s silhouette from the back, so strong and proud that you almost miss the gruesome hole where half his head used to be; Ace’s skin pallid where blood and fire had once so readily rushed underneath, his body limp and skin so cold to the touch, no matter how much blue flames Marco tried to wrap him in; the mass of bodies stuck to the ice, and familiar faces gone so white and lifeless as they slipped under the ocean; receiving news of his fellow commanders, the people he held as close as limbs, dying or disappearing, with Marco not knowing which was the better option; the first time he saw the tenderly growing village of Pop’s hometown, and the feverish craze he had sobbed himself into; settling, finding solace in the huffy demands of each and every life Pops protected as his family; the color of sunlight on the village’s unique crop of mineralized stone, the sight Marco fully expected to be his last.

Then, with a breath—in through his nose, out through his mouth, just like Rakuyo taught him—he pictured each memory as a photograph, and folded them away. He used to keep a habit of collecting newspaper articles on the Whitebeard pirates, despite all of Blamenco and Haruta’s mockery over his bird’s nesting instinct. He imagined folding every memory away just like that, corners neat and square, until all the images have gone and only a stack of paper remained. He tucked that into the back of his mind, way high up, so he wouldn’t easily sink back into them. 

When he opened his eyes again, Ace had woken back up, and had clearly been watching him. Before them, Steve the Sailfish gave a long, clicking chirp as they approached the breathtaking expanse of the Red Line.

Then Ace grinned, big and brilliant. And for the first time in a long, _long_ while, Marco felt in his chest the excitement of a brand new adventure at sea spreading its wings.

* * *

Night three, Marco volunteered information about his condition.

After finding Steve’s pod, quite a ways down from the Red Line, they said goodbye to the sailfish and docked at the nearest island. A dinner of local diner carbs (paid for by Marco, because Ace has never owned a wallet, nor did he plan on ever owning one) and a bottle of pleasant local spirit later, they were bunking down in a room. The innkeeper had been immediately taken with Ace’s smile—and Marco was sure Ace’s lack of shirt permitted by the arid climate of the rocky island didn’t hurt either. With matronly exclamations about adorable freckles and what nice young men they were (Ace sniggered pointedly at this, and Marco had to kick him under the check-in counter), the innkeeper explained they only had the room with the single bed right now, if that was alright? More than used to occupying the same room with only one small bed (Marco’s), the two pirates agreed readily enough, though Marco noticed a faint fidget in Ace’s fingers as they did so.

They were quickly ushered upstairs with a room key, a plate of sweetened tubers (the same root vegetable they were served for dinner—it grew in abundance on the island’s windy climate, it seemed), and two steaming mugs of hot cider.

“There is a threshold,” Marco began, setting his pack by the door, where Ace opted to throw himself, backpack and all, onto the bed. “Of energy that I can use, before I’m overexerted. At that point, the hole opens back up here and, from what you told me, eats up all my flames. I wouldn’t be able to heal yoi, much less change forms.”

“Do you know where that threshold is, exactly?” Ace asked. He was bouncing up and down, and drawing his hands back and forth across the smooth clean sheets—but his gaze on Marco was serious. “And sure, your devil fruit powers may be sealed, but would you still be able to fight normally?”

Marco had to be careful answering. After all, a major factor in his energy expenditure is him making _any_ changes in his current time that differed too drastically from the one he came from. After keeping careful track of his energy levels for the past two days, Marco concluded that the magnitude of change affected the amount of life force stripped from his phoenix. Saving Thatch’s life, for example, had wiped him clean out. Marco couldn’t be sure if preventing Ace from pursuing Blackbeard on his own factored into his four-day infirmity—best case scenario, it did, he had saved Ace’s life, and Marco’s recovery time from saving doomed lives was actually not too bad. He’s been laid up for far more than three, four days before.

Worst case scenario, keeping Ace from going off alone did not drain his life force, because it was a decision that hasn’t made any difference in the ultimate course of life for Ace. In other words, this wasn’t enough to keep Marineford from happening again.

The moment Marco got permission from Pops to take off with Ace, he had actually felt the pebble in his stomach go cold and draining. It hadn’t been as terrible as what preceded the fight with Teach, though. That’s what clued him in on orders of magnitude: he _knew_ they were increasing Ace’s chances of encountering Teach by sailing to Alabasta, thus making Marineford not just a minute probability. However, this time, Marco was with him. It made enough of a change that Marco felt shaky on his feet after his first transformation on the Striker. He was willing to take that as a good sign.

Still, with all these factors in play, Marco figured he should probably play it safe.

“I hate to say this, but you may just have to assume me useless as a baseline.” Ace stopped moving around, his brow furrowing. “The threshold is situational. When we encounter a fight, I’ll let you know how close I am to it. But otherwise, expect that I wouldn’t be of use—”

“You’re not useless,” Ace interrupted, scowling. “You could never be useless. I mean sure, your phoenix can be sealed away, but you’re still _Marco_ , a fucking badass without the fruit. So stop saying that.”

“...Alright.” With a bemused smile, Marco popped one of the tubers in his mouth, then offering the rest of the plate to Ace. Ace opted for one of the mugs instead, taking off the tray balanced on Marco’s palm. “So quick to defend my honor, huh?”

Shrugging, Ace replied, “someone’s got to.” His gaze trailed off pensively, steam from the mug curling around his face and hair, and Marco waited for him to speak again. “Listen, Pops told me not to push, but I…”

“You can say whatever you need to, Ace,” Marco said quietly, setting the tray aside.

Piles of tension were wrapped up in the way Ace had his fingers laced together, knuckles pressed white around the cup. It must’ve been hot, but Ace would hardly mind that. Marco saw in his expression a bit of the wildness from before taking Pop’s tattoo, the desperate anger to do drastic things, to put his life on every line he ever came across.

It made Marco remember that awful day, because, after all, that Ace died defending his father and protecting his brother was hardly senseless. The worst part of Marineford was that Marco could understand every single choice made by his most beloved that led to their deaths.

(He folded that memory away too, quickly, before he got too miserable once more, wondering if trampling on those very choices was the right thing to do.)

(It had to be.)

“Pops said you made a deal.” This was said in the tone of a self-reminder, like Ace was firmly setting a point of reference in his mind, to begin his thoughts at. “Deals have terms—life for knowledge, or so we thought. Now though, now you’re saying you’re not certain about the terms of the deal. It’s not just knowledge then, because you’d already know what would affect you, instead of telling me to assume that you can’t use your fruit powers. Something ongoing is draining you.” His eyes flew to Marco. “Is that something me?”

“Ace—”

“Or at least, it has something to do with me. You can’t deny it.” Ace was on his feet now, mug set on the bedside table with a loud _thunk_. “Marco, look, if I’m meant to die by Teach’s hands—”

“No,” Marco said firmly, “you’re not meant to have done anything. You said it yourself, you’re more than your fate. And besides—” He approached the bed and stood face-to-face with Ace, boldly staring right into Ace’s eyes. “—if our positions were reversed, are you saying you wouldn’t do everything in your power to save my life?” 

“...You know I would.”

“Then,” Marco said, placing the tips of his fingers deliberately on Ace’s bare chest, giving him a push. Ace fell back down to sitting on the bed with an _oof_. “Relax, and finish drinking your cider, yoi.”

“You wouldn’t be happy about it either, if you were me,” Ace muttered mutinously, though he obediently picked his mug back up. Sitting down beside Ace, Marco reached for his own mug, sipping the deliciously tangy, not-too-sweet homebrew.

Then, out of nowhere, Ace blurted, “Marco, do you love me?”

Marco choked on the cider.

“Bad question, I know, sorry– I just mean– Well you had thanked me for loving you, so—” As Ace blabbered in embarrassment, Marco did his best to cough out the syrupy coating sticking down his throat. “You know what, just– Forget I said anything, I’m just gonna go stand guard—”

“Ace, just– Hang on a second, would you?” Setting both their mugs back onto the side table (they were really going to have to be careful with this mattress, what with their apparent propensity for unruly, liquid-spilling motions), Marco once again guided Ace back to sitting. He really hoped the red in his cheeks could be blamed on the near-choking. “I– Of course I love you. You know I do.”

“Yeah, but not like—”

Ace broke off again, looking like he would rather go free-diving into an icy ocean than be sitting there. He looked utterly miserable, and Marco felt both guilty and helpless. Even before Ace had taken Pop’s mark on his back, before he came clean about his lineage, Marco had known he would need a lot of affirmation, whether he expressed it or not. The dark thing haunting Ace could only be chased away by clear and consistent declarations of love, the very opposite of what he must’ve grown up with. Well, good thing that Marco loved him. Less good thing that Marco loved him in a totally inappropriate way.

Ace was… Ace was young, and brilliant, and full of zest. Marco loved adventuring on the Blues as much as any self-respecting pirate, but he wasn’t like Thatch, who giddily joined Ace in prank wars and spreading non-malicious, yet nonetheless potent rumors throughout the fleet. He wasn’t like Haruta and Izo, who prickled at Ace’s challenging boasts in the galley and could happily fight Ace for hours on the nearest island. He wasn’t like so many of their younger brothers and sisters, who loved Ace with wide-eyed adoration. Marco wasn’t self-effacing, but he certainly was realistic. He knew that, given the trust that had to exist between him and Ace for them to work so closely together, it was a terrible idea to burden Ace with the knowledge of his… affections. Even before Teach and Thatch and Marineford, Marco had already resolved to never tell anybody, and so far, the only person he hasn’t managed to fool was—of course—Pops.

And now, after everything, there was even more reason Marco shouldn’t say anything. His primary objective right now was reuniting Ace with his brothers, both of them, now that he knew the one named Sabo still lived. Marco had meant it when he said he was trying to give Ace everything Ace deserved—he couldn’t take advantage of his opportunity by twisting it in his own favor, by trying to make Ace love him back.

But well, he couldn’t exactly lie to Ace’s face, either. So Marco fell back on the age-old strategy of deflection.

“You’re one of the most important people in the world to me,” he said honestly, gripping Ace’s shoulders tight. “I’d do anything for you.”

In the back of his mind, Marco could hear Pop’s disappointed sigh.

_Shut it Pops, I’m just trying to do what’s best for him._

_Idiot son, how do you know what’s best for him?_

“Right. No, yeah, I know. Me too,” Ace mumbled, clearly fighting to keep the corners of his lips from turning downwards. Not that Marco was watching his mouth. “Shit, sorry I keep making things weird, I know you’re not– Well, whatever. I swear I’m usually smoother than this.”

“Don’t worry yoi,” Marco replied with what he felt was an appropriate chuckle, “the Second Division members have kept me apprised of their commander’s flirting prowess every time we spend a night in town.”

“Right,” Ace repeated. He cleared his throat and made to stand up. This time, Marco let him. “You better get some sleep. I’ll patrol the perimeter, scope out the roof, wake you to switch at the usual time.”

“Sounds good.”

Marco’s words fell in an already-emptied room, and he toppled back onto the mattress with a groan. The sun hadn’t gone for more than an hour, and even with all his previous injuries, Marco was hard-pressed to go to sleep.

Inside his mind, Pops was laughing loudly and rudely.

_I don’t even think you know what’s best for you, son._

“Shut _up_ , Pops,” Marco whined under his breath. “I’m doing my best.”

* * *

Days four and five, Ace did his very best to not be a pain in Marco’s ass. Figuratively, of course. He had really gone too far these past days, taking advantage of Marco’s kindness to dump all his emotional bullshit. _Rein it in, Portgas_ , a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Sabo said. _Don’t be a jerk._

A ruder voice, his own, added, _and are you really surprised he doesn’t love you back?_

 _Shut the fuck up_ , Sabo’s voice advised, with Luffy’s childish chiming in the back, agreeing, _yeah! Shut the hell the up!_

On the morning of the fourth day, he had surprised Marco, who was still on guard duty, with a tray of hot coffee and warm breakfast. Before the sun had come up, the scent of freshly baking bread wafted over from next door. Ace followed it like a calling, and presented the fragrant, steaming buns as an apology and peace offering.

Night four, they landed in a printing town, and the truly astonishing amounts of newspapers printed there meant that Ace also managed to find an archivist willing to sell her collection of clippings about Strawhat Luffy. Marco bet him that the stack of highly flammable paper wouldn’t last to Alabasta on the tiny Striker with them, and Ace told Marco that he looked forward to collecting the twenty-thousand belis. Then Ace proceeded to stay up all night catching up on Luffy’s adventures. The archivist had charged him a pretty sum for the lot, but it turned out to be totally worth it, because she had clippings from the East Blue, all the way to small-time presses reporting on bounty hunter islands and mysterious developments on tropical islands with battling giants. Ace blinked hard through his dyslexia and hungrily devoured every flipped and wobbly word.

Day five, they sailed along a belt of trade winds, weaving in between giant galleons delivering what must’ve been millions of belis worth of goods (they might’ve snuck up the gaudiest one and stolen plates of food stacked high with rich meats and decadent sauces). Only hours after lunch, Marco directed them north, into a patch of sea Ace could’ve sworn was the Calm Belt, just without as many Sea Kings rearing their giant heads. All semblance of wind died, and Ace returned to powering the Striker while Marco neatly tied up the sail.

“Hey, what’s Alabasta like?” Ace asked, eyes on the horizon. “I’ve been to other desert countries, but this is the most famous one, right?”

“It’s got quite a legacy yoi,” Marco confirmed. He sat down behind Ace and pulled a canteen from his pack, sipping the lukewarm water. “The Nefertari family was one of the twenty royal families that created the World Government, and the only ones that remained behind, instead of moving to Mariejois. The capital’s existed for millennia—the palace in Alubarna is quite the sight.”

Amongst the pages about the Strawhats’ adventures, Ace had also pieced together a narrative of civil unrest in Alabasta. He asked Marco about it now, and got the full story, with citations to the Whitebeard crew's incredibly wide-reaching intelligence network.

“A Shichibukai, huh?” Ace glanced over his shoulder. “This Crocodile, he’s meant to keep Pops from getting too wild?”

Marco snorted, disbelief written clearly across his features. “There are seven of them for the Yonko, so doing the math on that, no. Crocodile doesn’t stand a chance against Whitebeard.”

“Sure, but if we subdivide Pop’s power by the sixteen commanders…” Ace joked, flashing his teeth in a sunny grin. “Think we’re a match for him, Marco?”

“You want to take down Crocodile?”

“Well I want to take _somebody_ down, but you won’t let me,” he reminded Marco. Unrepentant, Marco just shrugged.

“He’s got the Suna Suna no Mi, which I only imagine is stronger in the desert. And, not only is he a logia, but according to one of Izo’s spies, he’s also got some kind of secret technique up his sleeves. You think your flames can beat that?”

“I’ll burn him so hot he turns to glass.” Then Ace thought about it. “Damn, I wish Jinbei were here then. Sounds like all that water dancing skills could be good for handling the Suna Suna no Mi.”

“Water _dancing_?”

“He broke my femur and two of my ribs, I can call it whatever I want.” Smiling at Marco’s chuckles, Ace continued, “and besides, I’ll be doing all the work, won’t I? What’s a little bird like you gonna do against all that sand?”

Marco, cocking his head, raised one eyebrow at Ace.

“ _Oh Marco, you’re not useless_ ,” he said in breathless soprano, clutching the front of his own shirt in a dramatic swoon. “ _You could never be useless—_ ”

“Shit you’re ruthless,” Ace hissed, turning back out to sea in embarrassment. “When will Luffy get here, already? How long do I have to spend being stuck with you?”

They landed in the port city of Nanohana way after nightfall, because of an incident with a very large sunfish with very shiny scales (Ace had no money, after all, and since there was little time pressure, he figured he could find some honest methods of payment for the merchants and restaurant owners). Unfortunately, the chase after the sunfish required some fancy stepping and elaborate bursts of fire on the Striker, which led to a solid half of the newspapers on Luffy being charred, before Marco rescued them from under Ace’s feet. Their trip to a nearby inn was occupied by bickering, about whether or not Alabasta’s national waters counted in their bet, because technically, they had already been within the country’s borders, etc. etc.

Their inn had two beds this time—Ace found himself feeling disappointed that he would not get to wrap himself in Marco’s warmth and scent before falling asleep. And then Ace banished that thought, giving himself a couple of solid slaps on the face for good measure. Stupid Marco for indulging him all these years, letting Ace sleep in his bed whenever Ace wanted. Stupid Ace for getting so damn used to it, to the point where it made a tangible difference in his quality of sleep, whether or not he was wrapped up in Marco’s sheets.

“I’ll take the watch, yoi, ” Marco offered. The late evening hour meant that he probably intended to stay up all night, give Ace reprieve from guard duty. “You’ve been burning all day. Eat something and go to sleep.”

Ace woke up alone, the next morning. He didn’t miss Marco by much though, because there was still a steaming hot plate of breakfast waiting for him on the bedside table. A note was tucked underneath, alongside an envelope.

_Gone all day on an errand. If you’re not here when I get back, I won’t be angry, but I’ll be disappointed._

Rolling his eyes at the reference to one of Haruta’s stupid jokes, Ace opened the envelope. It was, of course, the twenty-thousand belis in neat crisp bills. Somehow, presented like this, it felt a lot less like Ace had won a bet, and more like an older brother’s generous indulgence.

There was a note inside as well: _Buy yourself something nice, darling._

“Asshole,” Ace told the note, before folding it up and tucking it carefully into his bag. Then he took out the stack of cash, looked out the window, and sighed.

“Why do I feel like a wife whose husband has gone off to war?” he asked morosely. Outside, the city was waking, merchants and traders and—sure enough—housewives running about purchasing their daily wares. A million fragrant scents wafted up through the window, and Ace thought and thought.

Once the idea’s been fully formed and considered from every angle, Ace grinned to himself, pulled out a long cotton coat from his backpack, threw it over his shoulders, and got to work.

* * *

Smoker found the pirate after his lunch break. Not the pirate he had been looking for, but a far bigger fish than he had ever expected to hook in these parts of the Grand Line.

“First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, Marco the Phoenix,” Smoker announced, for the sake of the foolish foot soldiers he commanded and the librarian currently by the pirate’s side. Sure enough, at the name of the Yonko, the librarian—a sweet-looking young man in thick glasses—dropped his friendly smile real quick and took some steps back.

Marco the Phoenix looked up at Smoker, blinking lazily.

“Just Marco is fine, yoi,” the pirate drawled. A pair of wire-frame glasses perched on his nose, and Marco ruffled the set of folders he had open in hand, looking disconcertingly distinguished. “You’re being a bit loud for a library, aren’t you, Marine?”

“Pirates don’t get to lecture me on manners,” Smoker snapped.

“Seems like somebody should. Now if you don’t mind—” Another pointed rustle of the papers. “—I’m trying to read.”

“Surrender now, or I’ll arrest you by force.” Any self-respecting Marine didn’t worry too much about things like notoriety—sure, Marco the Phoenix had been fairly legendary before Smoker even got off deck-scrubbing duty, but it was still Smoker’s job to arrest any and all pirates he came across. Or die trying, but Smoker had made his peace with that a long time ago.

“In a library?” The pirate had the nerve to sound affronted at _Smoker_ , like Smoker was the one breaking some social etiquette, like Smoker was the one being unbearably rude. With an openly annoyed sigh, Marco finally stood up, gathering up the files spread before him. They were mostly newspaper clippings. Smoker caught several headlines either condemning or touting the deeds of the Revolutionary Army.

Huh. What was Whitebeard’s second-in-command doing, looking into one of the other most wanted forces in the world?

“Researching a potential ally?” If that really were the case, Smoker’s priorities had to change. If there was any chance that one of the Yonkou would collude with the Revolutionary Army—the very force that has sworn to take down the existing government, from the Marines to the Celestial Dragons—then Smoker couldn’t quite lay his life on the line here. He had to do all he could to report the situation.

“Don’t worry too much about it, Captain Smoker,” Marco advised. He slipped the files into his pack with what looked like a wink at the young librarian, before hoisting the pack onto his shoulder. “It’s a strictly personal matter.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” He waved for the foot soldiers to get back, knowing they would just get in his way in a fight. Where the hell was Tashigi when he needed her? She could at least be counted on to keep a cool head, survive, and get the news back to HQ. With little other choice, Smoker stopped one of his men. “Get HQ on the line, report—”

Marco moved ghostly quick, snatching the den den mushi from the ensign’s hand before the poor boy could even blink. The ensign could be dead right now, Smoker realized, and that was on him.

“Actually yoi, I’ve got a question for you Marines.” As the ensign scuttered away and Smoker began dissipating himself to form a barrier between the pirate and his subordinates, Marco only calmly examined the den den mushi. “What can you tell me about the revolutionary army in this country?”

“Why should I tell you?”

Smoker needed to buy time, for both his subordinates at the civilians they were ushering out. Marco, for his part, looked on patiently, as if he were waiting for everybody to clear out as well. A pirate with a conscience? No way.

“Is it above your pay grade then, Captain?” The rank sounded like an insult from the pirate, and Smoker tried to use the opportunity to get a punch in. Marco only dodged with ease, even having the audacity to wave one hand through the trail of smoke, blowing on it and watching the tendrils swirl. “Nice. I’m sure this comes in very handy during a fight.”

Smoker went at him with the jutte next. Surprisingly spry for a man who’s kept such an indolent look on his face all this time, Marco met the weapon with one sandal-clad foot, not even swaying in his stance as he allowed Smoker to press the jutte closer. He was inspecting the tip, Smoker realized.

“Good craftsmanship,” Marco complimented. Then, before Smoker could even take a breath, there was a sharp, heavy pressure in his side—his feet left the ground, all the air knocked out of him as Marco’s kick sent him flying into the farthest wall. Smoker slammed into the stucco, pieces flying out all around him.

Ah, shit. When was the last time he was sent flying like this? He’d gotten a bit careless, after eating the devil fruit.

“Fresh transfer from East Blue, aren’t you yoi?” With the soft _tap, tap_ of sandals across stone, Marco made his way over, looking like he was taking an afternoon stroll. “You chased the Strawhats here from Loguetown. Really, you should be flattered Izo even knows about you. That means you’ve got potential.”

With a grunt, Smoker pulled himself back up on his feet. He began phasing into smoke again, and Marco made a face.

“Your tenacity is admirable, but you’re really just giving me more surface area to injure you with.” With a speculative tilt of his head, Marco asked, “how are you even planning to defeat me without haki?”

Smoker sailed forward once more with the jutte as a response. Once more, Marco knocked it aside without touching the tip, but Smoker was ready for it. This time, Smoker pulled together all the lectures and trainings the Marines had him go through, gathered his will behind his fist, and punched.

Marco caught his fist in one palm, and brought the opposite elbow up to slam into Smoker’s chin. A decisive blow on Smoker’s consciousness. Smoker cursed.

It was a weird sensation, but Marco even had the courtesy to slowly lower Smoker to the ground, still gripping Smoker’s fist. As the pirate’s face appeared in Smoker’s blurry vision, Smoker thought he actually looked a bit proud.

“That’s the idea,” Marco complimented. “You’re a fast learner, aren’t you? You’ll become one of the greats in no time, I’m sure. After all, you made it to Marineford.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Smoker slurred. He gripped his jutte, tried to get up, but could barely move. He had to pass out a bit right now, he knew.

“You’ll find out soon enough. And see, it doesn’t have to be a you versus me thing, we can both get what we want.” And Marco was, all of a sudden, behind Smoker, hoisting him up and walking him toward the door. “Think your subordinates will tell me what I want to know in exchange for your life?”

Smoker never got to reply, nor did he get to bark out the order to stay silent at his subordinates like he would have, had Marco not knocked him out before opening the door. Damned pirate. There was some difference between East Blue riffraffs and the pirating legends of the Grand Line, after all.

* * *

That night, armed with a sack full of information on the Revolutionary Army’s actions and whereabouts for the past three years, Marco returned to a suspiciously dark hotel room. Praying to any and all deities that Ace was just peacefully passed out at a restaurant, and would return without attracting any trouble, he opted to shower off the day’s grime before anything else. The fight with Smoker had taken only a minute, but dodging the persistent Marines that ran about the streets after that made Marco work up quite a sweat, especially in the afternoon sun. Had it been worth? The only thing Marco found out for sure that day was that the civil war in Alabasta had little to do with the Revolutionary Army. A shame, but Marco had expected as much—what were the odds, after all, that the third brother would end up on the same island as the other two, completely unknowingly?

After setting his sack safely against the wall nearest to the bathroom (in case any emergency required him to run for it right out of the shower), Marco made quick work of his sweat-stuck clothes and hopped in. Staying in a country with such illustrious history meant they got to enjoy the fruits of Alabasta’s engineering labor—water pressure out the shower nozzle was beautifully strong, and batted at Marco’s tense shoulder muscles until an appreciate groan slipped from his lips. Immediately after, there was the sound of something crashing to the floor in the room—Ace must be back, thank the heavens.

Opting to take his time, Marco set about making use of the frankincense shampoo, the jasmine shaving lotion and aftershave, the damask rose soap with the thickest, silkiest lather Marco had ever had the pleasure of using. Once he was sure he smelled like an entire street market, Marco stepped out, wrapped a fluffy towel around his waist, and reluctantly released the buildup of warm steam into the bedroom.

To the sight of what looked like hundreds of shopping bags strewn across his and Ace’s beds.

“...What’s all this, yoi?” Marco asked warily. Water had begun to drip from a lock of his hair, but he was afraid to move. Instead, he held his ground in front of the bathroom, facing down a grinning Ace.

“Ooh, you’re already getting into character, huh?” Sniffing the air, Ace flashed a thumbs up. “Smelling good, old man. Better than ever.”

Refusing to balk at Ace’s teasing appreciation, Marco put one steadying hand on the doorframe.

“What character?” he asked, not actually wanting to know.

“Well we’re going to be waiting around here for some time, right? And Vista’s always said, the best way to stay under the radar is a good disguise.” Nodding wisely to himself, Ace gestured generously at the bags. “So, I’ve taken the liberty to establish your persona today! Prince Marco, fifth in line for the throne of the Abasa Commonwealth, further north up the Sandora River. It’s a small statehood, sure, but the Royal Mining Company actually very recently unearthed a vein of pure gold. Under royal decree, you’ve come to Alabasta to be married off to some older Duchess, in return for land rights to further excavate the vein. However, unbeknownst to your king father, you have a peasant sweetheart in the backcountry, and have stolen gold to come speculate in Nanohana, in hopes of getting enough money to first cure your lover of a fatal illness, and then elope out to sea.”

“...So I’ve bought a ridiculous amount of clothes on my first night in town?” Casting his gaze about the room, Marco spotted the den den mushi on the desk by Ace’s bed. “Is Thatch in on this?”

“You don’t think I could’ve made that up myself?” Ace asked, affronted.

“It’s not quite your style,” Marco replied with a dry look. “Alright, I get it, you’re pissed about waking up alone. I won’t do it again, just hand me my regular clothes.”

“Oh, you mean these clothes?”

With a gleeful flash of teeth (and before Marco could stop him), Ace promptly set Marco’s shirt and pants on fire. They quickly charred to blackened soot (falling on _Marco’s_ bed), leaving only Marco’s favored sash and belt sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Oops.” Hopping to his feet, Ace strolled to his bed, flopping down unrepentantly. “Guess you’ll just have to wear what I bought you. Don’t worry _darling_ , I got them in your colors.”

Everything that tumbled out of the bags on Marco’s bed was, it seemed, glistening silk, luscious velvet, or fully sheer drapes of _nothing_. Several bags after that were completely dedicated to gold and sapphire jewelry.

“You vindictive little shit, yoi,” Marco whispered, practically in awe. This was so wildly out of his expectations, from when he had decided to leave those notes for a good laugh that morning.

“All’s fair, Marco,” Ace cackled from his bed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly very excited to explore this lovely little town.”

* * *

“How’s the revenge plan going?”

“Fine,” Ace definitely did not squeak, “it hasn’t come back to bite me in the ass or anything.”

Thatch was quiet over the line for half a moment, then, “what did you do?”

Instead of answering, Ace switched on the visual capabilities of the den den mushi. It was the third morning of their stay in Nanohana, and Marco was moving through his daily forms on the balcony, on the other side of thickly paneled glass sliding doors. Every Whitebeard pirate had seen Marco’s forms a thousand times, what with the commander’s faultless dedication to it every morning and the ability to be fully healed after practically every battle, so this wasn’t a rare sight. Or, it wasn’t supposed to be, if it weren’t for Marco’s _clothes_.

“...Holy sh– _Vista_ , get Pops, he’s gotta see this—”

“ _Nope_.” Ace flicked off the visual, and the little snail’s eyes draped back down from their upright positions. Sure, _Thatch_ was groaning in disappointment over the line, but he had no idea how Ace felt, being stuck with the sight that was Marco, exercising, in desert kingdom luxury wear.

Marco, in royal purple satin pants that clung to all the right places, that gave way to windows of sheer chiffon halfway down. Marco, arms immodestly bare, torso only slightly covered by a strip of inky fabric sensually gathered over one shoulder. Marco, with his trademark blue sash and gold chain at his waist, but the ends attached to various shiny wrist cuffs and neck jewelry that made him look impractically expensive. Marco, whose hair had bleached even blonder in the desert sun, who had wrapped up the shaved sides of his head with a navy bandana and a decorative string of silver coins.

“I’m so,” Ace said hoarsely, “angry.”

“Your fault for thirst-buying all those clothes,” Thatch snorted over the line. “You seriously didn’t see this coming at all?”

“We all make mistakes, Thatch,” Ace hissed. “How do I fix it?”

“Buy normal clothes?”

“I spent all our money, we’re completely broke.”

“Steal normal clothes?”

“Everyone recognizes us in this town now. We wouldn’t be able to keep a low profile and stay.”

“Well,” Thatch concluded, “it sounds like you’re fucked.”

“Thanks,” Ace said glumly. “He’s finishing his exercises, gotta go.”

“—yeah, just let him know it’s nothing we can’t handle, so he can stop motherhenning. Blenheim’s got it.” Thatch had the absolute talent for espionage that Ace could never hope to obtain, putting on this casual chatter just as Marco slid the glass door open. “Oh, and Izo says they’ll keep a ear to the ground, but it’s hard with a group like the Revolutionary Army. The sixteenth division has more intelligence stored, if Marco wants to read it when you get back.”

“Alright, thanks,” Marco called from the far side of the room, mopping the sweat from his forehead. Ace studiously refused to look at him or his bare abs. “And I’m not motherhenning, I’m checking in—”

“Mhm, sure, okay,” Thatch interrupted. “Well, dinner’s not gonna cook itself! Gotta go!”

With a click, the den den mushi returned to stasis mode, and Ace tossed it back in his bag. Marco looked on, amused.

“Any important news?”

“Nah.” Shrugging dismissively, Ace stood and stretched. A little less disciplined in his martial arts than Marco, Ace preferred to scatter his exercises throughout the day. And without the fear of sunburns, Ace was just going around in his usual comfortable clothes (or lack of), moving easily, without all the _pizzazz_ that Marco was currently sporting. “I’m starving.”

“The goat cheese place?” Marco suggested.

For a moment, Ace wanted to snap, _the same damn place we’ve been eating at?_ He kept silent, but that too was conspicuous.

“Or we can go to the other side of town,” Marco continued, a little more carefully.

Ace scratched the back of his head, and slipped on his hat.

“No, the goat cheese place is fine.”

* * *

Ace’s plan and Thatch’s little story stuck, and all the townspeople they came across whispered excitedly about royalty every time Marco walked by. Gamely playing along, Marco was generous with tips, and asked all the right questions about local gold prices, trade patterns, introducing Ace as both his squire and bodyguard. And it was fun, really, watching older ladies and men offering their children up as marriage options, or scolding each other for trying to get in the way of Marco’s true love with his peasant sweetheart. It was fun. It was fine.

But truthfully, whatever game they played, whatever absurd scenario Ace forced Marco into the middle of—none of it was helping with Ace’s growing antsiness. The shadow, the claws, the fangs that have hunted Ace since childhood were coming back, and the longer he left the Teach thing unsettled, the worse Ace felt. Pops and the crew have given Ace so damn much, and in return, all Ace had to do was one thing: protect them. He was young and brash and dumb and really only good for fighting, but when push came to shove, he couldn’t even do the thing he was being kept around for.

And the thing was, Ace knew this was part of the monster hunting him. It’s a venomous beast, and Ace could feel the toxin spreading. Makino, Pops, Thatch, Marco, Fossa—they all had, at one point or another, explained this to him, that part of the battle was shutting down the words that felt like deadly decay in his brain. But Ace fought with fists and pipes and clever engagement with his environment. He had a much, much harder time fighting his own rotten personality.

Through their days, Marco kept a pleasant, patient mood, but Ace could tell that _he_ could tell Ace wasn’t handling things well. Ace was sleeping less soundly, was having more narcoleptic attacks that left him dizzier for longer periods of time after. He ate less and less, blaming the lack of physical exertion and the heat, but both of them clearly knew it was because of something else.

He also started snapping at Marco, because—Because. He was hurt. He was immature. He was pissed. A thousand and one reasons and none of them good enough, but he still kept at it, and Portgas D. Ace could be one hell of an annoying bastard when he put his mind to it. Everything Marco did, from the food he ate himself for lunch to the location of the inn he picked, became knives and needles Ace used to jab at the man. And Marco was many things, but he was not a pushover—discussions became disagreements became arguments. Ace waited with dark, hate-filled eagerness for the day they would come to blows.

When it finally happened, it was over dinner. Slamming down his utensils and bowl, Marco snarled for Ace to get his ass outside. They circled around the cafeteria-style restaurant, passed the city walls, and faced each other in a stretch of sand, still cooling from the day’s heat. From the rocks to the cacti to the spiky brush, nothing was friendly between them.

“It always comes down to a fight with you, doesn’t it?” Marco said. Though he didn’t let too much spite color his words, Ace still clearly heard the derision. 

“I don’t take kindly to anybody telling me what to do,” Ace snapped back, referring to their argument. The same one that had been simmering since Marco’s fight with Teach, really, bubbling over now in the Alabasta heat. “Wasn’t aware I was signing up for such a control freak for family.”

The metal cuffs from Marco’s limbs fell one by one, heavy onto the sand. As too did the bandana, coins jingling ominously.

“Reason’s not working with you, yoi.” Putting his weight back onto one foot, Marco moved into sparring stance. Too bad—what Ace wanted wasn’t a polite spar, but a full-on, nasty brawl. He wanted blood, wanted the clarity of broken bones and a clear defeat, whichever side of that he ended up on.

“You should’ve gotten that memo quicker,” Ace muttered. And then he attacked, accelerating forward into a burst of flames, launching himself at Marco’s face. His armament haki was still somewhat undisciplined, but he had enough control to score at least some hits on Marco.

And besides, no better place to learn than in the heat of battle.

Because that’s what it became—a true battle. Ace put the full force of his fists behind each punch, the same force that served him well against great jungle beasts when he, Sabo, and Luffy were young. He was perceptive, calculating, and ruthless. In the first few seconds of engagement, Ace took full advantage of Marco’s hold-back to get in a good haki-enforced kick to the side of Marco’s knee, a cut with his dagger across Marco’s torso. The flimsy shirt fell instantly apart under the blade, leaving a moment’s sight of Marco’s bloody chest before blue flames ate up the wound.

“Are you getting soft in your old age?” Ace taunted. “Is this how Teach beat you?”

With gritted teeth, Marco took the offensive. Shiny black elbows and feet flew at Ace, who only barely dodged in time. He relied on his fire only for maneuverability, knowing better than to give Marco the opening to attack any part of him currently dissolved into flames.

Marco still hadn’t gone phoenix in any way. Ace would see to that.

He ducked under Marco’s guard, knowing he had just a split second before Marco closed back up and got a hold on him. With a precise kick that glanced off Marco’s pelvis, Ace managed to force loose the sky blue sash Marco always kept wrapped around his hips. Then, sacrificing a rib to a particularly hard kick Marco aimed at his side, Ace closed his fist around the long chain of golden discs that fell loose with the sash. He punched up, cast the chain over Marco’s shoulder, ducked around Marco himself, and _yanked_.

Marco choking around the chain sounded _bloody_ , and Ace knew he got to him when blue flames billowed to life, and a sharp talon descended on his head—despite losing all air, Marco still found the wherewithal to do the mother of all crunches, launching his half-phoenix body backwards over the top of his head, aiming for Ace. Ace did let go of the chain then, because the press of Marco’s claws to his skull threatened to take his life otherwise. With a shove that sent Ace stumbling, Marco pushed back and regained space between him and Ace.

“Asshole,” Marco wheezed. A thick dark welt was slowly being healed across his neck, and sure enough, he wiped bloody spittle from the side of his mouth. His eyes had gone dark and fully angry and good, good, that’s the way it should be. No kindness, no understanding.

Without giving Marco a chance to catch his breath, Ace dived back in once more. He had to press his advantage in short-distance fighting—Marco, after all, was much more used to mid- and long-ranged dive-bombing attacks. Ace should have the upperhand, when it came to pure physical strength in hand-to-hand.

Except—Marco met him blow for blow. The older commander’s years of battle experience were no joke. That, and whatever martial arts form he practiced daily without fail, all served to block each of Ace’s assaults. Marco was more patient than Ace as well, disengaging Ace’s punches one by one until frustration made Ace slip up. That was when Marco would swoop in with a knee straight into Ace’s gut, or an elbow clip to Ace’s ear.

Feeling himself get sloppy, Ace summoned all the stores of anger he had bottled up and converted them to flames. The massive column of fire that shot up around him had Marco stepping back. The fire that Ace summoned at hand could not hurt Marco, but he wondered if _hiken_ would.

With a soul-baring yell, Ace punched forth a barrage of flames, aimed straight at Marco. He felt resistance, but the fire column was so wide that he couldn’t even see how Marco was blocking it. Flames climbed higher and higher, twisting into a deadly inferno until finally, Ace had to pull back and take a breath. Sure enough, on the other side, Marco’s wings were spread bigger than ever, crossed in front of him and brilliantly lit in blues and golds.

“Looks like you’re back at full strength after all,” Ace scoffed.

Unexpectedly, Marco’s glare faltered. He looked up at the stretch of his wings, and seemed to realize for the first time how massive they had gotten. This was a familiar sight to anyone who has ever been protected by the Phoenix, but it seemed to completely throw Marco off. The blue flames extinguished without warning, and Marco stumbled in the sand, balling his hands into fists.

“Ace, stop this,” he said, and all of Ace’s hard-won peace of mind from the battle disappeared. The insolent anger came rushing back, and Ace stalked forward, laying Marco out with a single brutal punch to the face. Marco didn't stop him.

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you?” Ace was yelling. Marco seemed to have stoppered his flames, and every fire-lit punch scored painful-looking red welts across his skin. He barely even blocked the haki-reinforced hits, and there was suddenly more blood than ever before. “Why are you suddenly so _scared_ of fighting? Of protecting what matters? You won’t let Thatch or Pop’s name be avenged. When did you become such a _coward_ , Marco?”

Open palms struck Ace’s arms and pushed him away. Marco stood wavering on the sand, his gaze wary but determinedly fixed on Ace. 

“Reputation isn’t the most important thing, yoi.”

“Tell that to someone who’s not Gol D. Roger’s kid,” Ace snarled.

“It’s more important that you _live,_ Ace!”

“No, it _isn’t_!”

Another clash, the dull sound of flesh hitting flesh. Ace had Marco on the ground, legs pinned. Marco could swing his fists up, could headbutt Ace off him, could call back his wings and fly up, toss Ace into the ocean—but he only laid back, arms spread all martyr-like with those ever-steady eyes on Ace.

“You want to protect your family so bad,” he said. “Why can’t you see I’m just trying to do the same?”

 _Because I don’t deserve to be protected_.

“Teach has made things very ugly,” Marco continued, “I only want to fix it.”

“You can’t fix me.”

“There’s nothing to fix about you.”

Ace turned his right leg into fire, and forced himself to stare Marco right in the eyes as he first burned, then broke Marco’s leg. _Snap!_ Forced himself to watch the awful pain cross Marco’s face.

“Try again,” he said coldly.

“There is,” Marco gritted out, cold sweat dappling his brow, “ _nothing_ to fix about you.”

“I,” Ace murmured numbly, stumbling to his feet. “I need to think.”

He made for the desert, knowing he was better company for blood-drinking lizards and giant venomous centipedes than people right now. Behind him, he heard Marco get up too with a hiss of pain. The bastard was still refusing to heal himself.

“Don’t go too far,” Marco practically pleaded. In the shifting sands, nothing seemed real. Ace felt uncharacteristically cold. “I’m not moving from this spot until you’ve returned, got it? Take all the time you need, but you gotta come _back_.”

Ace disappeared into the dunes with the wind.

* * *

The balcony sliding door opened soundlessly, and Ace began packing his things. It’s been hours since his fight with Marco, and the sky was beginning to pink. He doubted Marco would go back on his word about not leaving that spot, at least not so quickly, but Ace was still careful.

He was going after Teach. He had to. His entire world felt wrong and off-kilter, the longer he spent not in pursuit, the longer he spent in Marco’s cherishing company. 

God, Marco. What the fuck—

There was no doubt in Ace’s mind that he himself was in the wrong. His own uselessness soured within him, ate a hole in his chest that all good feelings drained out from. He used to get into fights like this with Luffy, where bad things just got the better of Ace, and he’d revert to the cold, dismissive jerk he was before accepting his brothers. Sabo too, to a lesser degree, because Sabo would always call him out on it. Tell him to take a hike, beat up some rocks, and come back when he was feeling better. Or Sabo would come to him, Luffy in tow, if Ace still hasn’t made it back after some time had passed.

 _You’re hopeless without us, aren’t you_? Sabo had sighed. _That’s why you should stop trying to push us away already. We’re here to stay._

 _You too, dumbass_ , Ace had shot back. _Sure, I get angry, but you get all deflecting and mean, when you don’t want us around. I’ll promise to always come back, if you do too._

 _Me too!_ Always eager to join, Luffy waved his rubbery arms wildly to get Ace and Sabo’s attention. Never mind that he was only half a foot away. _I’ll promise too!_

 _You’re elastic_ , Ace snorted, secretly grateful. _You bounce back even when we don’t want you to._

 _Alright, a promise_ , Sabo agreed. _It’s part of brotherhood, isn’t it? To always come back, and to have each other’s backs._

But Sabo hadn’t come back. Sabo didn’t come back, and Ace and Luffy didn’t go after him. A cherished brotherhood had crumbled so easily—all Ace could do was vow, for Luffy and Sabo’s sakes, to continue living without regrets. To clear his filthy name, and to protect his brother.

So that’s what Ace would do now. Hurt Marco to protect him. Leave him to hunt down Teach, to show the world no one could betray Whitebeard’s good name like that without consequence, and to prove to himself that he had not gone back on his promises. No one could hurt his family like that and get away with it.

As for Marco… Marco’d give up, when it became clear that Ace was not going back. Marco may have far too much faith in Ace but he wasn’t a total idiot, he wouldn’t die out there on his own. He might pursue Ace, afterwards—or, even better, he’d give up and let Ace go. Go back to the Moby, join back up with the crew, and just forget about Ace. Ace could sacrifice his relationship with Marco if it meant getting rid of Teach, the man who had proven once already that he could tear away everything Ace held dear. Ace didn’t even need to think twice about that trade-off.

So Ace packed. Grabbed his stuff, hopped back out the window without a glance back, doing his absolute best to shake the feeling that leaving his half of the room empty was the worst kind of betrayal.

* * *

That was, of course, the day Luffy decided to arrive.

Seeing the unmistakable straw hat jolly roger on that strange, goat-headed ship at the docks, Ace mused about the timing of it all. He decided to take it as a sign, that the moment he was about to leave, the seas put Luffy right in his path. He would get to check in on his troublesome younger brother, make sure Luffy’s in good hands, and then get going off the island.

So Ace doubled back, counting his blessings that Marco had chosen an inn in the northeastern corner of Nanohana, and the Strawhats, if they had any sense, would probably stay south, where all the biggest markets were and where they had the easiest access back out to sea.

It didn’t take too long to find Luffy, because Ace just followed his nose to the best-smelling meat restaurant in town (honestly, Ace had come to the same restaurant many times before in the days prior—the owner gave generous portions and stopped freaking out about Ace’s narcolepsy by the second day). Sure enough, in the distance, Ace spotted the straw hat through the restaurant doors, and was about to yell Luffy’s name when he heard the clang of sword against scabbard.

“Target spotted, move in!”

Marines, damn! Still some ways away, Ace dropped into a dead sprint, racing two coat-clad figures, one in white and the other in pink toward Luffy. The white one must be the White Hunter, Captain Smoker—Marco had spoken about his encounter with the Captain that first day. The other, Ace was sure he was supposed to recognize, based on Izo’s constantly-updated database on Marine big players. A beautiful woman with an obviously well-trained body, and the steady gaze of an experienced combatant.

With an inferno’s burst of power, Ace dashed past the Marines and hit the threshold before the two captains. His boots tractioned hard on the sandy floor, and with both arms outstretched, Ace sent twin tunnels of fire outward. Both captains were forced to dodge—Smoker billowed out into a wall of white, while the woman flung herself to the side and came rolling back up with ease.

Smoker regarded Ace, a deep and angry furrow in his brow.

“Portgas D. Ace,” he growled. “Is your entire crew here then? Is Whitebeard on vacation from the New World?

“Someone of your caliber defending a rookie?” the woman said. “Hina is suspicious.”

Black Cage Hina—that’s right. Paramecia type, but nothing Ace couldn’t handle. The intangibility afforded to Logia types was ultimately quite useful.

Behind him, Ace could hear Luffy’s confused questions, muffled as they were by the pounds of meat he was no doubt stuffing in his face.

“Huh? What’s going on out there, Old Man? Fireworks?”

“Shh, shut up kid! Those are Marines! That’s the– Oh shit, Ace has been a pirate all this time?!”

“Ace? Wait, you said Ace? Ace, with the hat and the tattoo and the freckles? That Ace?”

Grinning, Ace braced himself for impact, as Luffy launched himself onto Ace’s back with a loud, _loud_ shout. He barely kept his footing, but happily patted the arms that Luffy were wrapping around and around and around Ace’s shoulders.

“ _Ace!_ I can’t believe it’s you! You– Whoa, you’re on fire! Is that okay?!”

“Yeah, I ate the Mera Mera no Mi a couple of years back—”

“ _Aah!_ The smoke guy! You’re trouble, argh, what are you doing here? Crap, I gotta run—”

The rubber limbs were unwrapping again, and Luffy hasn’t changed a single bit. He was still all wide grins, casual affection, and unbound energy. Luffy landed on his feet and would’ve fallen right into the path of Smoker’s jutte, if Ace hadn’t sliced a wall of flames through the earth, cutting Smoker off. The woman appeared beside Luffy, and made to clothesline Luffy—except her arm went clean through the boy, leaving a thick black band of metal in its wake.

“What the– Weird metal? Her arm disappeared?” As puzzled as Luffy looked, he still had the sensibility to simply squeeze out of Hina’s “cage,” ducking yet another effort by Hina to bind him and scampering away, slippers slapping through the sand.

“Hey Luffy!” Ace shouted, concentration on keeping Smoker on the other side of his fire wall. With a free foot, he kicked out another fireball, aimed between Hina and Luffy. “We can’t exactly talk like this—get back to your ship, and I’ll catch up with you!”

Luffy’s laughter was bright and nostalgic. It was like a battery to Ace, the uncomplicated joy of their youth roaring back to life inside his brain, and he was ready to kick up a storm.

“Sure thing! Then I’ll see you in a bit, Ace. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone!”

Silently apologizing to the shop owners who would have to fix up the charred exteriors of their properties, Ace extended his wall of flames to surround all of the Marines present. Smoker finally regathered, giving up on getting past Ace for the moment.

“Portgas!” he bellowed. “Why are you helping Strawhat?”

“Isn’t it an older brother’s job to keep his idiot of a younger brother safe?” As Ace said the words, he could’ve laughed at the painful irony. Marco was still somewhere out in the dunes. 

“Pirates are criminals,” Hina said coolly, “he doesn’t deserve to be saved.”

Ace knew, then, there was something he had to do before finding Luffy again.

“When it comes to family,” Ace answered, “everyone deserves to be saved.”

* * *

Marco spent the better part of the night tamping down the phoenix flames that threatened to spill out of him, heal his wounds. Since the fight, he had been at peak energy level—like he got everything back from before the time reversal. That had him badly spooked. After all, it meant that the pebble was no longer eating his life force, which meant Marco was no longer making a difference. Ace had gone, surely in pursuit of Teach, and Marco was just _sitting_ there, just like last time.

...No. Marco forced himself to not think like that, because this was about more than that. This was about Ace fighting his demons, and about Marco letting him, not trying to divert the battle for him (because that had already gone over so well). This was about Ace making his own decisions, and Marco being scared of that. Scared of Ace not choosing himself. Scared of Ace not choosing to believe in Marco.

Marco understood then, with terrible dread, that coming back in time wasn’t a one-time fix-all. Now, he faced the very real possibility that despite everything, he had still failed in his goal. But he couldn’t keep Ace tied down forever—nor did he want to. The choice to forego Teach had to come from Ace himself.

In the meantime, all Marco could do was wait, and hope. The sand shifted all around him, and Marco knew he couldn’t fall asleep. Once he did, he was sure to wake up buried—and fully healed, because that was just how his powers worked.

So to focus his mind, Marco thought back to the last time he and Ace had been on this much sand. In the two years after the Paramount War, Marco relied on these sorts of memories a lot, to get him through the desolation, so he cast himself inward with ease.

This was before Pops had gotten really bad, when he had still been allowed to eat all the barbequed fatty meats and go carelessly traipsing through virus-ridden islands with them. It wasn’t the last time Pops had enjoyed an outdoor bonfire with his family, but it was the last time he had done so without the insistent beeping of medical machines around him.

Ace had been in such a good mood, after battle with the Parry Pirates. The gold and goods they scored were a solid boon, and the night began with a toast in Ace’s honor. After all, Ace had been the one to take down the enemy captain in a harrowing battle.

Marco remembered that Ace had plopped a strange headpiece of pearls and gold filaments across the top of Marco’s skull, arranging it to his liking. Marco snorted, in real time. Even back then, Ace had an affinity for dressing Marco up.

 _It’s ‘cause you’re a bird_ , Ace had explained seriously, but with the red flush of alcohol coloring his freckles. _Don’t birds collect, y’know, shiny things?_

 _I just wanted that blank calfskin notebook,_ Marco sighed, pleasantly buzzed himself. _But you keep giving me gold._

 _I like it when you’re gold_. Grinning, Ace had looked golden himself in the light of the bonfire, languidly sprawled in all his shirtless glory. The beach sand was soft and the color of bread crust. Marco thought Ace looked good enough to eat.

His leg hurt. The burn felt like tiny insects chewing their way down to his bone, and the bone felt like a compound fracture. Taking a deep breath, Marco closed his eyes and cast about for another memory.

Ace, about a year after he took Pop’s mark—the Whitebeards were about to learn just how easily affectionate the young man could be. He hung out with his arms draped over Pop’s knees, picked up smaller members and tossed them over his shoulders, clung like a limpet to people’s arms and legs when he was still sleepy and didn’t want to be moved. It had all been brought about by a sleepover night, or so Thatch informed Marco, and a very drunken game of Truth, Dare, or Fight hosted on the Thirteenth Division’s head ship.

Marco had been away somewhat long-term, a matter in the North Blue that Pops wanted discreetly taken care of. It had been a mess of politics and forced stalemates that left Marco itching for a good old fashioned fight. The moment he got back, he wanted to drop everything even remotely related to the word “report” and just hit something or someone, maybe the immovable Jozu, until his body’s worked out all the stifled energy from the past months. Instead, he got called apologetically but urgently into a meeting with the Seventh Division, and stumbled out of that room way after dinner service had ended.

Deciding to forgo all bodily indulgences (like exercise, food, and drink) for the night, Marco went stumbling off to bed. Instead of safe passage to his room and peaceful REM, however, he felt a sudden weight slam into his back, toppling him over in the middle of the hallway.

 _Marcoooo!_ was Ace’s very loud, very enthusiastic yell right into Marco’s ear. The boy had both legs wrapped tight against Marco’s bottom ribs, and the whole top of his torso draped over Marco’s right shoulder. _I’ve_ missed _you._

The fruity scent of Fossa’s homebrew wafted from Ace’s breath, and behind them, Marco could hear unsuccessful attempts to stifle sniggering. Thatch, of course, and some riffraffs from the Second Division. Forehead on the floor from the impact, Marco slowly counted backwards from ten.

 _Marco? Marco? Marco that_ is _you right? You remember me right?_

 _Of course I remember you Ace_ , Marco sighed. _How can I forget, yoi?_

 _That’s right_ , Ace mumbled solemnly. _No one’s ever forgotten me. I won’t let them._

_Why are you– Who put you up to this?_

_Up on your back?_ Breathing sleepily now, Ace nuzzled into Marco’s neck, and an unwitting shiver coursed its way down Marco’s spine. Beyond the knees and the hard squeeze of muscle, Ace was… warm. _I put myself here. Wow, I’m tired. Fossa’s drink makes me very, very sleepy._

Marco thought about bumping into Ace (or the other way around) in this hallway, where there was only Marco’s room and an archiving room.

 _Were you on your way to my bed?_ Taking Ace’s slurred humming noises as confirmation, Marco said, _hate to break it to you yoi, but I’m sleeping there tonight. I’m dead on my feet._

 _Sure_ , Ace agreed magnanimously. _Let’s go then._

At that, their secret spectator burst out into helpless laughter, and sure enough, Thatch stumbled out from behind the wall. He pointed and wheezed some more at the sight of Marco, standing straight, and Ace draped over him like a large and unruly sweater.

 _Alright, alright sleeping beauty_ , Thatch said, gesturing at Ace. _Let’s get you out of Marco’s hair—_

Marco stopped his approach with a glare. On top of him, Ace had taken Thatch’s words as a prompt and began to mouth at Marco’s hair. Thank god he caught a quick shower earlier that day.

 _Since when has he been this affectionate?_ Marco interrogated.

 _New development for sure, man, and it’s not even just ‘cause of the alcohol,_ Thatch shrugged. _But aren’t you glad? He hugs me every morning now ‘cause I give him breakfast. What a sweet guy._

 _So you’re saying_ , Marco reiterated, _you’ve had him to yourself for the past two months? While I’ve been out, alone, in the freezing North Blue?_

_What– Not exactly– I mean, he’s just been here, and everyone else has been here, y’know?_

_Sure_. Then, _he can stay the night with me._

Thatch blinked.

 _Yeah,_ Marco confirmed. Whatever the feeling that had gone to his head was, he didn’t care. He rode the high and wheeled around, Ace still solidly secured to his head. _I get him tonight._

What followed was a night of extremely pleasant sleep, tranquil dreams spurred on by the press of warm skin against his, and the thoroughly comforting sensation of Ace’s limbs octopusing around Marco’s entire body. The next morning, Marco woke to a very conscious, embarrassed Ace.

 _Sixteen cups_ , Ace said mournfully.  _Last thing I remember is telling you you don't need blankets if you've got me._

Marco mumbled something unmemorable in reply, and hugged Ace tighter, trying to fall back asleep.

 _Welcome back, by the way_ , he heard Ace whisper before unconsciousness took him again. _I’ve missed you_.

After that, Marco had been too self-conscious to make a habit out of cuddling his fellow commander to sleep, and they only ended up entwined in sleep again on rare occasions, often mediated by alcohol. With a phoenix’s hollow bones, Marco slept very well with Ace’s warmth at hand’s reach. What he wouldn’t give to have that comfort again. Particularly now, with his bones and flesh aching, sand scraping across scored skin.

It occurred to Marco that he might be punishing himself, for the arrogance of presuming to alter fate, for hoping he could give a young man back his life and his family back their father. But he really wasn’t about to give up at this point. Nauseous and not at all willingly, he began grimly preparing for Marineford, summoning his memories of each distinct beat in battle, all the moments that Marco could still strive to alter. They had been so close, after all.

First, Squard. Marco’s immediate instincts were to just grab the allied captain before battle and straighten everything out—he had absolute faith that Squard’s heart was true, and just needed a bit of perspective on the “Son of Roger” situation.

However, if there was one lesson Pops drilled into Marco in all their time on the Moby, it was to never underestimate Sengoku. _He’s a good man_ , Pops had told Marco, _and that’s what makes him dangerous. He understands the hearts of other good men, and plays steps ahead of the game._ No doubt Sengoku had contingencies in place, should the doubt in Squard’s heart be vanquished ahead of time. Marco didn’t dare risk triggering the secondary plan, one he had little hopes of preparing for. So that left only the moment of Squard’s attack on Pops—Marco had to get away from the battle just a split second earlier, and intercept the attack.

If that were truly the only option, Marco hoped, then, for everybody’s sake, that Pop’s life did not depend entirely on the wound Squard dealt. Shitty as it sounded, Marco would no doubt be drained if he successfully saved Pop’s life, and for that to happen so early in battle was just a recipe for disaster. To intercept Squard, Marco could foresee three possibilities:

One, he successfully saves Pop’s life, is ultimately drained, and in all likelihood dies on the battlefield. Marco could hold his own with just haki and a good saber, but if he so obviously lost power in the middle of battle, the Marines would target him with all they’ve got, taking him down like with Oars Jr. Not to mention the Admirals—no, if this were the case, Marco would most definitely die, trading his life for Whitebeard’s. Ace’s life was no guarantee.

Two, the difference he makes is negligible, and the battle resumes. Marco would not be drained. Nothing is changed, and Whitebeard, who would walk onto that battlefield expecting to give his life, will.

Three, he would not save Pop’s life in that moment, but the difference would be enough in the long run. Perhaps, as Whitebeard faced down Akainu, he wouldn’t collapse as he did. During the battle, Marco had shamefully panicked when he saw Pops go down—years of instincts brought him turning instantly to Pop’s side, which gave Kizaru enough of an opening to get hits in on Marco. In this possibility, Marco wouldn’t escape unscathed—life force would’ve been drained from him, after all. Kizaru would press the advantage, Marco would fall, and maybe that bastard Akainu would still get a hit in on Pops.

So, loathed as he was to admit it, Marco couldn’t fixate on this moment. As much as he wanted to prevent Squard from hurting Pops, his ultimate goal was saving lives, not preventing scars.

Maybe the difference lied in his battle with Kizaru. In the two years following the War, Marco did his best not to dwell on the past, but nightmares of what he failed to do during the fight still haunted him. His mind has distorted that battle into a gruesome minefield, full of missed opportunities, and Marco had to force himself to parse through all that, searching for the truth.

He wondered if the error in judgment occurred before the War even began. In the war room of the Moby, the commanders had unanimously decided that Marco and Jozu, their two strongest, most well-rounded fighters, would flank Pops against the Marine Admirals. _The one they call Akainu_ , Pops had said, _seems the type to go straight for the enemy head._ That left Marco and Jozu to Kizaru and Aokiji—Marco’s immunity to attacks and Jozu’s impenetrable defense meant the difference between the two admirals seemed irrelevant. Their choices basically came down to, _I’ll just take care of whichever one’s closest to me, yoi._

But what would’ve happened if they’d switched? Sure, Jozu didn’t have Marco’s speed and flexibility, but he could hustle fast enough to keep up with Kizaru in the short term. Diamonds refracted light, so Jozu would not only be able to take Kizaru’s attacks, but unlike Marco, also launch Kizaru’s attacks back. With careful aiming, Jozu could take out so many more of the Marines, perhaps the pack of bloodthirsty Vice Admirals. Marco remembered the Vice Admirals ganging up on Pops—he would take great pleasure in watching them fall to their own admiral’s attacks.

As for Marco—well, he’s never gone up against the ice giant before, but he could already think of some strategies he could deploy. Any of Aokiji’s remote attacks most likely wouldn’t work on Marco’s intangible flames, and if Aokiji got close enough to grab any part of Marco, Marco could just break off the frozen bits and regrow them. Aokiji wouldn’t be able to freeze him, and Jozu wouldn’t lose an arm. Perhaps, if he were fast enough, he could get away from Aokiji in the split second that Pops would falter. Take Akainu’s punch for Pops.

And then—and then there’d be no seastone cuff on Marco, because that would be on Jozu’s side of the field. The wounds meant for Marco would end up on Jozu, so Marco silently apologized for that. But he would need every last bit of his strength if he were to save Ace’s life. Nothing else had to change—Marco had great faith in Ace’s brother, that indomitable willpower Strawhat Luffy showed in coming to Ace’s aid. Marco just had to deflect Aokiji for long enough—keep his own fire burning long enough—to shore up the power he needed to stop Akainu one last time.

With all the stoppered phoenix flames inside him, covered in wounds he would not heal, Marco imagined saving Ace’s life. Thanks to the night of Teach’s mutiny, Marco knew exactly how to tear into the very last recesses of his energy stores, practically turning himself inside out. He’d do just that, transmuting flesh into flames as he stared Akainu right in the eyes, fucking _daring_ the bastard to take away the people most important to Marco again.

Ace would grab Luffy, get the younger brother out of harm’s way. He’d only have seconds before Marco’s emptied out, what with Akainu and the damned pebble burning him from both ends. Marco would be finished, the moment the phoenix gave out. Every bit of blue and gold, eaten up, Marco just skin and bones before Akainu.

Akainu liked to punch holes through people’s torsos, but Marco would get the last laugh, because he’d already have one. Cold gravity. He imagined he’d be able to hear the horned creature cackling.

Would that be enough? Marco remembered Pops’ furious, devastated howl after Ace died, before pouncing on Akainu. He knew Pops would do the same for him, hopefully preventing Ace from diving right back into the impossible battle. Would that mean Whitebeard still dies?

But… Before he split the earths and saved his children, before Teach appeared, Pops had ordered everybody to get back. He had ordered for _Marco_ , specifically, to get back. Having been in Pop’s service for so long, Marco heard the implicit order: _you have the charge now, take care of everyone_. It wasn’t that any of the other commanders weren’t competent enough, just that none of them were Marco, the undisputed second-in-command. Would Pops still risk a suicide mission against the world, if he knew Marco wouldn’t be there to pick up the pieces?

How nice it was to dream that he could save the two men he loved, simply by sacrificing himself. The reality would probably be much uglier, but for now, while he waited for a miracle, Marco could dream.

* * *

True to his word, Marco hadn’t moved. Which meant Ace had left him wounded in the desert cold for a night, then for hours more under the climbing sun.

“You are,” Ace hissed, dropping both his and Marco’s bags beside Marco’s laid-out body, “impossible.”

The smile looked genuine, but painful around a cracking lip. “You came back, yoi.”

“Heal yourself already.” Ace angrily tossed down a full canteen of water and a bag of food as well. “You look pathetic.”

“Only if you’re back to stay,” Marco replied. Even through both black eyes, he managed to affect a solemn stare.

“That’s emotional blackmail.” After a beat, however, Ace folded himself down to sit by Marco’s head. “But yes, I’m back… to stay.”

With the sound of crackling embers, blue flames licked out from Marco’s body. They were much smaller and slower than expected.

“What happened? I thought you got your strength back—” Ace’s confusion gave way to unhappy realization. “—So it _is_ me. The factor messing with your powers is me.”

“Only tangentially.” Ace wanted to be angry at Marco for sounding so cavalier, but Marco was watching the slow healing, looking thoroughly _relieved_. “Trust me yoi. I’m not complaining." 

With enough of sun-damaged skin healed, Ace helped Marco sit up, then shoved the canteen and food at him again.

“Eat. Drink.” 

Bemused, Marco did. Large, cross-eyed lizards scampered by them, and the sounds of Nanohana deep into a day’s trade weren’t too far away. Ace let the sounds wash over him as he watched Marco consume the sandwich.

“Would you tell me,” Marco asked between bites, “what made you come back?”

Ace’s u-turn through Nanohana, dodging the Marines, then circling back to the inn to pack Marco’s stuff and check out had given him much time to think. He had worked out exactly what he need to say.

“I saw Luffy.” Marco’s eyes widened, but he looked like he understood exactly what Ace meant by that simple sentence. Still, Ace owed him a whole explanation. “...All my life, I’ve thought of fighting as protecting, and I thought of protecting as just one kind of thing. I protect the lives of people important to me, but I guess, in the middle of it all, I got the definitions of lives all switched up.”

“Your experience growing up as Roger’s son,” Marco softly filled in. Ace nodded.

“The reason I wanted to kill Pops in the first place was because I thought, that’s gotta be a surefire way to make my name known. The name Portgas D. Ace, not the son of the devil. In the New World, it’s easy to think, if I die, I die, but if I’m gonna live, my name’s gotta be heard around the world. I _had_ to protect Pop’s name, or it’d feel like none of it mattered.”

“We’re more than just our names yoi, or the nasty things people say.”

“I guess my brain’s fucked up, but it’s hard to think like that.” Marco passed the canteen, and Ace took a grateful sip, soothing his drying throat. “But I made a promise to Luffy, before. He was one of only two people in this whole damn world who wanted me to live—not do anything in particular, but just _live_. I promised him I wouldn’t die.”

Ace didn’t feel the heat of the sun on his skin, but something in the winds, the sounds, and the sands of the desert weighed on the back of his neck. He almost couldn’t bring himself to look up into Marco’s face. But he forced himself, spying at Marco through the fall of hair in his eyes.

Marco looked… Heartbroken. Touched. Compassionate. Full of love. Marco was as different a man from Luffy as could get, but in that moment, he reminded Ace of Luffy, in the open way they showed Ace, _I want you around. Yes, you._

“I think I understand you now.” Ace’s voice had dropped to a whisper, and his gaze fell away as well, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. To hell with my pride—hunting down Teach would mean my death, and you’re doing everything to save me. I told you I was grateful before, but now I really get it, I think.”

“Ace.” 

Marco’s hands were big and insistent around Ace’s face, and Ace looked up, startled. A furrow had formed deep in Marco’s brow, and his gaze was intent.

“What is ‘it?’” he asked urgently, like somehow, everything was riding on Ace’s answer. “What is ‘it’ that you get?”

“That I want to live,” Ace choked out, “with you and Luffy and Pops and everyone else. I want to live… more badly than I want anything else in the world.”

Before Ace was even finished speaking, Marco was already pulling him into a rough hug. A noise like a sob was buried in Ace’s shoulder, and Ace could feel his own tears falling. He gripped Marco tightly back, blue fire chasing away the gouges of red his nails left behind. It felt devastating, but in the way of volcanoes, where once the magma has cooled and the soot settled, there was a clarity about the air, and greens sprouted anew.

“You have no idea how happy—” Marco was fully blubbering into the side of Ace’s neck now, and Ace would remember this moment later on to tease him with. _We’re even_ , he would say, _snot and tears for everybody._ But for now, Ace just laughed, feeling every bit of joy and relief Marco was exuding. “—You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.”

“Alright you sap.” Somewhere along the line, Marco had lifted Ace into his lap for a better angle on the hug and nuzzling. Ace loved the feeling of Marco’s lips speaking against his clavicle. He ought to break it up, because Luffy was waiting for them somewhere out on the southern docks. He ought to unwrap his limbs and get moving.

 _But maybe two more minutes_ , Ace thought, letting his own lips trail against the top of Marco’s ear. _I deserve this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Ace deserves this character arc without dying, dammit. TTTT
> 
> I'm really awful at timelines? So I'm just taking liberties and hoping for the best. In the original time, Marco and the Whitebeards learned that Ace had successfully met up with Luffy at Nanohana through the news, and that's how Marco knew to immediately head there. So they skipped Drum Island, and I figured they'd get to Alabasta faster??
> 
> I'm a firm believer that Marco's a hardcore crier. Like, fuck toxic masculinity, he's a pretty emotionally open man. He cries whenever he reads a heartwarming story in the newspaper at the breakfast table.
> 
> The Ace-tells-Marco-he's-Roger's-kid backstory comes from [this doujin](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://myreadingmanga.info/ninekoks-kyuugou-one-piece-dj-gravity-eng/&sa=D&ust=1532801688333000&usg=AFQjCNEnTtGKpRHGANgB9fbq4gYiqgl3Gg).
> 
> 8/30: With respect to an anonymous comment I received, I've swapped out the word "kamikaze," due to its history of violence and terror done by Japan in WWII. Thank you for keeping me accountable!!


	2. Interlude: Strawhats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the wonderful comments so far!! There's no update schedule I can promise to, but I swear to god i'm working hard on part 3 lol.

They got to the sea, and found the Strawhats’ ship engaged in battle with the Baroque Works Billions. Stray and deflected cannonballs slammed into the rocky coastline, and beneath Marco’s feet, Nanohana’s southern decks were quaking with every impact.

“Ah, my bad,” Ace muttered from just ahead with a guilty cringe. “I totally told Luffy I’d take care of the Marines.”

“You were a bit held up,” Marco replied wryly. Getting back on their feet from the (not at all) little feelings session and coming down from the northside of town took a little more time than Ace had probably anticipated. Marco nodded at the Striker, tied just one dock over. “Wanna help them out a bit?” 

“I’ll meet you on their ship,” Ace confirmed. Then, with a hop, skip, and jump he was launching himself forward on the Striker, flames gathering heat as he went.

Marco loved watching Ace in his element like this—the ease with which _winning_ came to Ace, the charisma and knockout talent that poured out of every shift and minute gesture. It all kept Marco’s attention helplessly drawn, like the proverbial moth to literal flames. If Ace were the enemy, it was easy to see in moments like this why Sengoku had risked worldwide devastation to get rid of him. He was terrifying. He was beautiful.

...And he was a total showoff. There had been absolutely no need for the graceful leap into the sky, catching himself back on the Striker after he’s launched over all of the ships. There had been no need for the smirk, the pose, the jaunty flip of the hat. _Hiken_ on its own was impressive enough, searing through seven full-sized ships just like that. Ace had mentioned he only got the devil fruit after reaching the Grand Line—was he trying to display his prowess with fire for his brother’s crew?

With an amused shake of his head, Marco concentrated on shifting form. It was nothing he hadn’t done a million times, but this was actually part of his little weeping timeout on Ace—during that conversation, Marco had felt the steady and unmistakable depletion of his flames, the spread of a gaping cold gravity inside his stomach. Ace really wasn’t going to go after Teach by himself anymore. The sheer amount of energy that the pebble ate made a dangerous hope bloom in Marco’s heart. Like when he had saved Thatch, Marco had barely been able to heal himself. Was this it? Was this Ace’s life successfully preserved?

The phoenix came slowly, spreading out from his shoulders. He had put on one of Ace’s ridiculous shirts before coming out, a sleeveless yet hooded affair in dark navy. Feather-fire threaded out from the sheer material down his arms, until Marco happily flexed the pinions at his fingertips.

Hollow-boned, he launched into the sky, powerful legs needing only one push to get him clear across the water. Now that he was fully phoenix, Marco felt fine—it was the transition that took the most out of him. His wings dragged wind and his talons wrapped neatly around the deck banister (the shipwrights always complained when he left scratch marks and gouges).

“What the—”

“Whoa! A mysterious bird!”

“That’s a– is that a phoenix?!”

“It’s so big!”

“No, Chopper, don’t get too close—I’ve heard legends of a flesh-eating blue bird that roams the seas…”

“Hey, hey, do you think it’s yummy?”

“Oi Luffy, don’t go trying to eat my partner!”

 _So that was Ace’s big brother tone_ , Marco mused. Among the commanders and even many of their general members, Ace was the undisputed youngest, in spirit if not always in age. Ace came hopping over the opposite side of the deck now, smacking the back of Luffy’s head even before he found his balance.

Then he straightened up, beaming at the six other crew members and nodding in greeting.

“You must be the Strawhats—pleasure to meet you all! My troublesome little brother’s been in your care. I’m entrusting him to you, thanks for all your hard work!”

Marco chuckled mentally at the Strawhats’ dumbfounded expressions, and Luffy’s guileless grin up at his older brother.

“Nuh-uh, no way,” Cat Burglar Nami declared. “There’s no way someone this polite could be Luffy’s older brother.”

“He’s a way better person than his younger brother!” Pirate Hunter Zoro yelped.

Even the crew pet, Cotton-Lover Chopper, chimed in, “brotherhood is such a beautiful thing.”

“Hey Ace! This is my crew!” Sandals slapping loudly, Luffy bounced from member to member as he introduced them. “Zoro, he loves alcohol and is gonna become the greatest swordsman in the world! This is Nami, she’s a genius navigator and she’ll steal all your money! Usopp, he’s a liar and has a really long nose, isn’t it great? Chopper has a funny nose too, it’s blue! They’re both super strong, hahah! This is Sanji, he used to work at a restaurant on the sea and now he can make _anything_ we catch into the best-tasting meat. And this is Vivi, she’s a princess and we’re trying to kick Crocodile’s ass and get her her country back!”

“Nice,” Ace complimented genuinely. He looked across the tops of everybody’s heads at Marco, a wry grin lifting a corner of his mouth. “This is Marco, a phoenix, I guess. He’s one of my crew members.”

“Whitebeard pirates First Division Commander?” With a frown, Zoro looked Marco up and down, gaze lingering for a moment on Marco’s tattoo. “I never thought the Marines were being so literal when they called him Marco the Phoenix.”

“I thought phoenixes were a myth!” Despite his previous trepidation, the sharpshooter—Sogeking? Usopp? Ah well—was inching his way toward Marco, an artist-craftsman’s delight in his eyes. Obligingly, Marco nudged a couple of feathers loose to drift toward him. Together with the little reindeer, the sharpshooter snatched them out of the air and began examining them with loud appreciation. Ace made a speculative humming noise from across the deck, because he knew the feathers were no small boon. Whatever injuries, aches or pains they found, the feathers would balm and heal, depending on the severity. _And_ , Haruta had remarked dryly once, _they make a good nightlight_.

 _There’s no shame in still needing a nightlight to sleep, yoi_ , was all Marco said in reply. The baby-faced commander was teased for months about nightlights after that. 

“Well, I’m sure you and Luffy have a lot to say,” Sanji said to Ace, popping a cigarette into his mouth. Marco knew what Ace was going to do before he did it, scoffing when the end of the fresh cigarette suddenly lit a bright cherry. Funnily enough, the chef turned a little red too, at Ace’s friendly smile. “Oh– thank you. Um, why don’t you two come in? I’ll make some tea, you can get a chance to catch up.”

Ace looked over at Marco again, hope written clear across his face. In response, Marco just flapped up into the air and crossed the width of the deck, landing on Ace’s outstretched arm.

“Sure, that sounds great.” Ace’s boots thunked onto the planks, and with his free hand, Ace hauled both his own and Marco’s packs onto one shoulder. “Lead the way.”

* * *

By the time dinner rolled around, Marco’s shifted back to human form. The entire crew was gathered in the kitchen, and Marco had the audacity to stroll right around the door like this was the Moby. He even walked right past all the defensive weapons drawn, coolly slouching down in the seat beside Ace’s.

“Yo, Marco,” Ace said, mostly for the Strawhats’ benefits. Poor Usopp looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. “Finally joining us in the speaking world, huh?”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Marco said, looking around at everybody. “I’ve been a bit under the weather lately. It was easier to just stay a bird yoi.”

Privately, Ace frowned, and touched the side of Marco’s arm in concern. Marco gently nudged him back in assurance. 

“Okay, so you _are_ human,” Zoro grumbled, resheathing his sword. He sat back down at the table, still somewhat protectively positioned between Chopper and Vivi.

“Ooh, man you look like some kind of food as both a bird and human, huh?” Luffy laughed, as he clanged his utensils about waiting for his meat. Ace winced, knowing this was just how Luffy was, but also wishing those weren’t the technical first words Luffy said to Marco. That was his brother—always knew how to make an impression.

But Marco seemed unfazed, even pleased. He propped his chin up on one hand and smiled lazily across the table.

“Yeah, pineapple, right? Ace mentions that now and again.” There was a little bowl of nuts and dried fruits in the middle of the table, and Marco helped himself to some. Ace magnanimously refrained from bird jokes. “Good to meet you, Monkey D. Luffy. I’ve heard lots about you.”

“Ace said you’re family, and you matter a lot to him!”

“Oi, Luffy—”

“Dinner’s served! Seaking flank and legs, dry-rubbed in baharat and slow-cooked. For the ladies, I’ve prepared pulled meat salads and finger sandwiches…”

Before Ace could grab any meat however, one of Marco’s arms curled around Ace’s head, bringing Ace down into a sudden hug against his shoulder. Ace looked up, but he was still smiling across the table at Luffy.

“He means a lot to me too,” Marco told Luffy, and Ace had to consciously keep his flames tamped down, refusing to succumb to the coursing heat Marco’s words sent through him. “Thanks for watching out for him all those years. He’s in good care now.”

Ace knew how seriously Luffy was taking this moment, because despite all the meat within his rubbery reach, Luffy’s mouth was currently empty. Not unfriendly, he sized Marco up—whatever he saw obviously pleased him, for he grinned again, and a whole chunk of thigh meat, bone and all, was suddenly stuffed into his cheek.

“Good! I like you!”

“Sure you don’t want to join the Whitebeard pirates?” Ace asked quickly. He had scrambled up from where Marco released him, and kept his eyes down on the food. Marco felt inappropriately amused, and Ace wanted to poke him with a fork.

“No way,” Luffy said bluntly, and Ace laughed. He’d missed his strangely fearless crybaby of a little brother more than he thought. “You all seem like good people though. Hey, did you know Chopper can transform into seven forms? He went into this _epic_ beast mode once and…”

* * *

“What do you think?”

With a little grunt of effort, Ace landed a comfortable seat beside Marco. They sat on the crossbeam of the great mast, right beside the crow’s nest. Ace, of course, had hopped up with just a little burst of flames, not even enough to brown the wood beneath his feet.

“I think the chef has a little crush on you,” Marco answered glibly. Ace tossed his head back and laughed. Ah, so he had noticed.

“I’m not unfamiliar with his type,” Ace said.

“And what type is that?”

“You know, angry and spirited, a giant flirt. Thinks he’s king of the world until an older man who clearly outclasses him wanders through. Then he’s meek as a lamb.”

Clearly not just talking about Black Leg, Ace was watching Marco, looking both embarrassed and challenging at the same time. Casual smile slipping off his face, Marco put a heavy hand on Ace’s shoulder.

“Ace, yoi... Are you telling me... you have a crush on Pops?” he asked solemnly.

The resulting _hiken_ may have charred the top of the Strawhats’ sail a little bit, and Marco swung fluidly about the beam on both hands and feet, dancing easily around Ace’s fists.

“You’re _horrible_.”

“And you’re no meek lamb,” Marco returned. His sandals tapped against the solid wood as he walked up and down the beam, stepping neatly over Ace’s legs at every pass through. “I like them, clearly. Your brother’s exactly as you said he’d be.”

“At least one of us gives faithful accounts of people,” Ace scoffed, referring to the afternoon’s chatter about how the Strawhats thought Ace would be so much more terrifying. The monster’s brother who was an even bigger monster. Instead, Ace had spent the afternoon politely wandering from room to room on the Going Merry, keeping familiar chatter and generally putting the crew at ease.

“The Cat Burglar’s my favorite,” Marco remarked. “She asked if I wanted some tangerines, and in exchange, proceeded to swindle me out of everything but the clothes on my back.”

“Hahah, as if it’s such a hardship for you to get rid of those clothes.” Rolling his eyes, Ace hopped to his feet as well. When he faced Marco, he was practically vibrating with excitement. “Hey, what do you think of Luffy wanting to be the Pirate King?”

Marco tossed his head back and laughed, remembering one of the few bright spots at Marineford. The kid in the straw hat who first defended Pops from Crocodile (huh, and wasn’t it funny that they were just getting to bringing Crocodile down, in this timeline?), then declared to Whitebeard himself that _he_ , Monkey D. Luffy, was going to become the Pirate King. A little more soberly, Marco also remembered Sengoku’s accusation that Pops wanted to make _Ace_ Pirate King. While Sengoku was rarely wrong, that accusation was _barely_ true. As if Pops would ever try to “make” Ace anything Ace didn’t want to be.

But speaking of which.

“I think your brother’s got a good shot to the top,” Marco said honestly. Then, “did you ever share his ambition?”

“Me? No, didn't want people to talk like there's some kind of lineage, y'know? But I don't really care anymore, I found something more important though, along the way. And if anyone deserves to be on the top, it’s Pops.” Ace’s gaze on Marco turned shrew. “How about you, then? Marco the Phoenix—you’re basically as legendary as Pops himself. Was Pirate King your ambition, before becoming a Whitebeard?”

“Being the Pirate King’s crew was always good enough for me,” Marco answered. “Guess I’ve never been that ambitious.”

Ace snorted loudly. “Oh please, you’re plenty ambitious, just about crap like budgeting deadlines and supplies lists and ship repairs.”

“I wouldn’t have to be, if a certain someone doesn’t keep eating the fridge clean and burning down random parts of—”

“Hey, how old were you when you sailed out?” Ace asked hurriedly.

The sun had began to set, and the pink and orange along Alabasta’s golden sands was quite a sight. Marco had come from a great desert island, a lot like this one.

“Fourteen.” At Ace’s low whistle, Marco said wryly, “I just cleaned shit. Literally. They only brought me along ‘cause I was small enough to scrub all the dirty corners.”

“And when did you join Pops?”

“Three days after I turned sixteen.” 

And what a day it had been. The man Marco called captain had been arrogant, with a sizable bounty but little practical skill to show for it. At fifteen, Marco had already known he could take the man, who was two times taller and three times as wide, in a fair fight. He just kept scrubbing the deck though, kept with the crew out of convenience and a vague sense of obligation. He remembered taking the dinnertime lookout shift frequently back then, watching the sunset as he was doing right now with Ace, knowing in his heart that he was just waiting for the right opportunity to leave for greener pastures.

In the New World, the captain’s arrogance had culminated in an ill-fated fight with Edward Newgate and the group of dangerous-looking ruffians who called themselves the Whitebeard Pirates. They took the top deck first, and despite Marco’s loud protests that he could fight, the captain and his core group of men shoved Marco down below deck with them, hoping to hide in a spare closet and avoid notice long enough to escape.

Marco knew it was hopeless, long before the huge blond man with the weird mustache crashed right through the decks above, stopping them in their tracks. As the other pirates screamed around them, Marco was the only one to slip into battle stance with a saber in his hand.

(And the “cutest expression of grim determination on his face,” as Pops liked to tell it, “like he was ready to fight me to the death, _gurararara_. I knew then he had to be my son.”)

There was a cramped flight of stairs right behind them, and the pirates were gearing to escape up it. The captain, with a rough and clammy hand, grabbed Marco’s shoulder none-too-gently.

 _How many people are above?_ he demanded to know. With haki, Marco didn’t even need to turn his eyes from Newgate. As a result, he saw the flicker of interest on Newgate’s face the moment he began to scan the deck above.

 _Too many for you to think of escaping that way,_ Marco answered honestly. The grip tightened, and Marco stoically held back a grimace.

 _Just tell me—_  

 _Don’t do it,_ he snapped, forgoing all manners. Didn’t the man realize just how much concentration was necessary to stand against a foe like Newgate? Didn’t he realize that, should Marco’s attention falter for even just a moment, they were all through? _You’re actually more likely to survive here, there’s far more bloodlust up there than—_

 _Goddammit, Marco_ — _!_

Marco had barely registered the cold steel of a sharp blade against his neck before Newgate did— _something_ —and the captain collapsed, frothing at the mouth with all his men. The captain’s sword clattered to the ground, a drop of Marco’s blood on it, but Marco didn’t even notice. There had been a sensation like a big _push_ , like the fear of death itself had taken human form and socked Marco right under the chin. His breath choked and he stumbled, but Marco gripped his sword harder and stood his ground.

 _Gurarara_ , Newgate rumbled, _now isn’t that something?_  

Then, without further warning, the giant man launched himself forward, at a speed greater than had seemed possible with his mass. The huge bisento came gnawing for Marco’s flesh, and Marco knew he had no chance of blocking. Instead, he flung himself backwards, saber outstretched as the last line of defense against the bisento, and felt the force of Newgate’s swing connect metal-to-metal, sending him flying straight up. He crashed back the way Newgate came from, through all the underdeck levels until Marco once again saw the sun.

He did his best to tumble into a roll, scrambling to his feet. His saber, which had taken the blunt of the blow, shattered into pieces. Marco quickly chucked the obsolete hilt, and flicked out his boot dagger. It was smaller than Newgate’s pinky finger.

Newgate was already there, teeth flashing as he prowled after Marco. The handful of Whitebeard pirates still on the top deck were chortling, watching the proceedings in good humor.

 _What, didn’t you find any treasure down there, Captain?_ someone asked.

 _No, I think I did_ , Newgate said in reply.

(Every time Pops got to this part of the story, one or more of the commanders would groan and shout, _dammit Pops, you’re such a sap_. Pops would just grin shamelessly, and Marco—who would always turn full phoenix during story time, because birds didn’t flush red or make embarrassing expressions—would resist the urge to preen.)

Clicking his tongue, Marco realized that he had no hope of outrunning Newgate. If anything, he needed to get close—that bisento had mighty reach, but must be unwieldy in close combat. Marco had less than a second’s chance, even if he were lucky, and he needed to act as soon as—

A sharp crack, as the main mast snapped irreparably in half to fall. Newgate’s pupils flickered.

— _now_!

The air inside the bubble of Newgate’s immediate person felt warmer, like the man himself was some sort of burning, gravitational force. Marco hadn’t even brought his dagger up before he felt the man’s giant hand curling around his left shoulder and neck. Knowing a jab would fall short, Marco opted to fling the blade instead, figuring there was no point hanging onto the dagger after this point. And sure enough, Newgate’s slapdown sent Marco back into the deck, buried among the cracked and splintered wood. That, plus the first hit, left Marco in too much pain to move again. 

 _Aw,_ Newgate said above him, suddenly sounding oddly petulant for a man of his stature and age. _I was growing that._

Marco pried his eyes open enough to see the man poking at his mustache, and the bit on the left end that Marco’s thrown dagger had sheared off. Around them, the crew was rolling about in loud peals of laughter, though Newgate didn’t seem to mind.

 _Looked like it could use a trim,_ Marco groaned. With some effort, he hauled himself out of the Marco-shaped hole and sat up, preferring to not be killed in such an undignified position. Newgate, however, set his bisento down.

 _You’re one of hell of a kid, aren’t you?_ he said.

 _That means a lot coming from someone like you,_ Marco admitted. Bounties and stories aside, Newgate was the most astonishing fighter Marco’s ever had the privilege of seeing. And he hadn’t even been serious, swatting Marco about. _Thanks._

 _And he’s got good manners too_ , Newgate told the crew around him. Looking back, he asked, _now tell me, what kind of pirate crew turns a sword on its own member?_

 _A temporary one_ , Marco shrugged. Honestly, he didn’t even feel that betrayed by his “captain.” He’d known the man’s character since the start, and cowardice made the worst of everybody.

 _Seems to me like you have a better option now_ . Newgate grinned, big and smug, opening his arms wide in a welcoming gesture of embrace. _Join my crew. If you take my name on your back, son, you’ll be able to do as you like on these seas. I’ll teach you to hone all that talent, and I don’t tolerate betrayal._

Having expected an execution, not an invitation, Marco had only been able to blink, wondering if this was all some joke. Newgate seemed serious enough though, and the crew had stopped laughing for the most part, watching Marco with interest.

 _I’m no turncoat_ , Marco said, cautiously.

 _No_ , Newgate agreed. _You’re strong._

It occurred to Marco, suddenly, that nobody on his previous crew had ever been able to acknowledge that. He had been just a kid to them, and it was all either, _step back down before you hurt yourself_ , or, _quit it and get back to scrubbing_.

“Son” sounded a lot like “kid,” but something about Newgate made Marco think twice. The man before him was nothing like the dismissive, self-absorbed men he used to call crew and captain.

 _C’mon son_ , Newgate urged, _you belong with me._

 _Alright Pops_ , Marco said, aiming for somewhere between biting and teasing, because at the end of the day he was an embarrassed teenager, not knowing what to do with all the good faith Newgate was throwing at him. _I’ll sail with you._

 _Pops_ , Newgate repeated, something very warm and delighted dawning in his eyes. _Oh, I like the sound of that._

“So _you_ started the whole ‘Pops’ thing?!” Ace yelped. “Holy crap, I’m listening to ancient history, aren’t I?”

“Might as well be, as far as you’re concerned,” Marco groaned, suddenly feeling centuries older. “God, Raftel still hadn’t been found, and you haven’t even been conceived yet.”

“Just how old are you?” Ace asked in a weirdly wonderous tone, like Marco was some rare fossil that he, a dedicated archeologist, had unearthed.

“That was twenty-six years ago, so do the math yourself yoi.”

Marco waited through Ace’s careful calculations—for that precise moment of realization and Ace’s gleeful exclamation—to shove Ace clean off the beam. With a loud squawk, Ace fell all the day back down to the deck, slamming into the wood as a starburst of fire. Then, like an arrow shooting through mist, Ace’s human silhouette reformed in the center and he flung himself right back up.

“You’re _forty-two_ , holy _fuck_ ! Thatch and Izo always just said you were hundreds of years old and sure, it was funny, but I didn’t think it was actually _true_ —”

“Do you even know what ‘true’ means?” Marco groused. Ah, well. There went the little wisps of hopeful interest from earlier in their conversation, when Ace all but confessed his crush on Marco. Surely Ace was thoroughly put off now. Marco wasn’t _embarrassed_ —there was nothing embarrassing about age, after all. He was just—the sunset was just getting real bright and annoying in his eyes. And he was still pacing, back turned on Ace as he marched the opposite way toward the crow’s nest. If his face was turned away from Ace at that moment, it was a sheer coincidental confluence of events.

A pair of arms came wrapping around his neck, along with a matching pair of legs around his waist. Caught fairly unsuspecting, Marco was nearly bowed over by Ace’s sudden weight on him, one hand shooting out to brace against the main mast for balance.

“Don’t get huffy,” Ace mumbled into his back. The fact that Ace had, days ago, deprived Marco of all his shirts with actual _cloth_ meant that right now, there was a lot of skin-on-skin contact. Neither of them ever ran cold, but the warmth of a human body was still starkly different from the warmth of the desert sun. Marco felt all that keenly now, for whatever reason, and had to keep everything tense as granite to keep from slipping off the curved beam beneath his sandals.

“I’m not huffy,” he protested faintly.

“Mhm,” Ace hummed, sounding wholly unconvinced. Then, he whispered conspiratorially, “you’re still the hottest old man I’ve ever seen.”

Marco did kind of slip then. Only a little bit, and Ace didn’t even try to help right the upset in balance, just laughed shamelessly in Marco’s ear.

“Hey.” Taking on the tone for a new conversation, like he didn’t just rock the entire foundation of Marco’s world system with a single joke, Ace still remained on Marco’s back. Instinctively, Marco actually shifted him up into a more comfortable hold. “Luffy asked if we wanted to stay with them for a bit.”

Having expected, even wanted as much, Marco was quick to nod.

“Of course. How long did you want to stay?”

A noise of surprise. “You’re okay with that? Marco the Phoenix, the man, the legend himself, traveling with a pack of rookies?”

Ignoring the teasing words, Marco replied, “I brought you here to see him, didn’t I?”

_I don’t presume you held these as regrets in the past life, but it’s the least I can do, giving them back to you._

The arms around his neck squeezed tighter, and Ace’s voice in his ear was now tinged with frustration.

“But only that? I’d thought perhaps there was something else– You really didn’t plan to go anywhere else?”

Well, Marco did, actually. But that was one thing he’d thought long and hard about before even leaving the Moby. His conclusion in the end had been a very firm _no_ , for whether or not he would tell Ace about Sabo. The Sabo from the past timeline had explained his amnesia to Marco when they’d met, even told Marco about his three-day fever upon regaining his memories only after Ace had died. The pain had undoubtedly been excruciating, to have regained a brother only in a moment of devastating loss. Marco wanted to give Ace back his second brother, but had no idea if re-triggering Sabo’s memories required that same kind of serious impact. 

“Actually, there is something else,” he told Ace. “There’s a man I need to find. It’s personal, but very important.”

“In the Revolutionary Army,” Ace put together. “It’s why you’ve got Izo digging into them for you. Does he have something to do with Teach?”

Marco was about to say no, but paused. In some roundabout way, he supposed Sabo did end up having something to do with Teach. Who knew Blackbeard’s plan two years into the future, but he had hunted down and destroyed the Revolutionary Army base for a reason. Perhaps, if Marco wasn’t careful, he’d actually be putting the third brother’s life in danger.

“I hope not,” he finally answered. “But trust me when I say—”

“I do,” Ace interrupted, squeezing Marco again. He huffed out a laugh. “Of course I trust you, Marco, and of course we’ll go look for this man together. You’ve already done so much for me, I wouldn’t refuse you that.”

“We’ll go after,” Marco promised, “however long you want to stay.”

* * *

It happened that evening, when Nami took Vivi off the ship. With all of the clothes she got from Marco slung in a pouch over her shoulder, Nami cheerfully announced they were going to stay the night in the next port town. Horihana was a lot smaller than her sister city Nanohana, but specialized in linen trade. The plan was to sell off all the fancy cloth from Nanohana, buy Nami and Vivi some practical desert clothes (said with a pointed glare at Sanji), and hang around town for some more intel on the Rebel Army and the current state of politics. Usopp and Chopper, who had saved up allowances of their own, were also going to go explore the cooler evening markets.

That left Ace and Marco with Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji on the ship. The land cooled faster than the sea, and Ace’s hat almost got swept away in the sudden onslaught of rough sea winds. Marco caught it before it flew too far away, and returned it to Ace’s head with a teasing tug at the drawstrings. Ace swallowed, and was trying to come up with something witty and casual to say, when Luffy’s head suddenly popped up from behind Marco.

...With an absolutely no-good grin on his face.

“Hey, _ossan_ ,” he said, loudly and cheerily, “Zoro says you’re supposed to be like, super strong.”

There was a large clang of metal, as Zoro set down the ridiculously large set of weights he had been training with. The swordsman popped up beside Marco as well, with a blood-thirsty smile that matched his captain’s.

“So exactly how strong is the First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates supposed to be?”

When the sound of Sanji clearing away tea and dessert dishes from the little fold-out table on deck stopped, Ace realized this was an ambush. Luffy may be overly transparent and a terrible liar, but he still managed to be sneaky by doing the completely unexpected—Ace was losing his touch if he didn’t see this coming.

“Oi, did you wait ‘til everyone with sense got off the ship to spring this on Marco?” Ace asked, scowling at Luffy. To his surprise, Luffy’s expression turned serious.

“No, we just thought since Vivi’s gone, it’d be good.”

“To get a measure of our own strength,” Zoro elaborated, “compared to yours.”

“We’re not naive enough to think we won’t get our asses handed to us,” Sanji said, approaching as he lit a cigarette. “Vivi-chan is very kind, and no doubt trusts us as nakama. But it’d be cruel to show her our shortcomings right before she needs us to be strong, wouldn’t it?”

“You are strong,” Marco said, ever the affirming older brother. He did admit, however, “but not as strong as me, yoi.”

“ _Ossan,_  have you ever fought Ace?”

Luffy’s question was typically naive, but brought back to Ace the wave of guilt from that little showdown in the desert. Ace’s hand twitched, and his throat closed too quickly to be able to answer. It was too conspicuous, and of course both Marco and Luffy saw. Luffy cocked his head, a worried furrow appearing on his brow, while Marco deflected with a chuckle.

“Sure, we’ve sparred plenty of times. And—” A flash of teeth, and a soft look in Marco’s eyes to let Ace know all has been forgiven. “—Ace ran away from our last fight.”

“I didn’t—!” The knee-jerk protest died on his lips, because, well, technically, Ace kind of did. He scoffed incredulously. If they were going to play it like that. “You were losing anyways. I had you on the ropes.”

“Sure,” Marco answered indulgently.

“Well, the cook and I don’t know how strong Ace is either,” Zoro interjected, frowning. “Do you want to spar or not?”

“That’s probably not the best idea for your ship yoi,” Marco pointed out, eyebrows raised in concern.

“We won’t get too crazy,” Sanji promised. Marco still looked dubious, so the cook pressed, “and you’d really let us have enough leeway to do damage to the ship? I honestly thought you’d be stronger than that.”

A muscle in Marco’s cheek twitched. Ace wasn’t sure if he suppressed a grin or a grimace.

“Yeah,” Luffy giggled, “how long do you think it’d take for you to beat us?”

“Full out, with sparring rules?” Meaning, first down with demonstrated kill was a win. The tilt of Marco’s head and his hooded gaze were wickedly honest. “Seven seconds each, yoi.”

A roar of wind took the place of human sound on the Merry deck as Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji processed that. A moment later, they’ve regathered themselves, and were ready.

“Ooh… Interesting,” Luffy muttered, a lot more _awareness_ suddenly around his body.

“That’s a hell of a claim,” said Zoro, as he tied the bandana from his arm low on his brow.

“It’s a battle for our pride now, isn’t it?” Sanji scoffed, tapping the toe of one shoe against the wood.

“No,” Marco answered. He too was ready, and Ace felt a thrill up his own spine when Marco pushed a wave of vicious, honestly out-of-character killing intent across the deck. “It’s a battle for your lives.”

And it was. Ace was honestly surprised at how little Marco held back. The Whitebeard pirates made a full culture out of friendly spars, and the commanders in particular were popular recipients of match requests. Vista once told Ace that Marco received easily more than twice the number of match requests than any of the other commanders, because not only was Marco strong, but he was also a patient teacher. He gave constructive criticism to his sparring partners, ran fights at half-time (literally, slowing down all of his movements so that his opponent could see and attempt the block that Marco just taught them), and even offered himself up for anybody’s new range weapon as target practice. The sparring partner that Ace knew was Marco at his absolute kindest.

What Marco did to the three Strawhats was… not kind. In fact, it was almost enough to make Ace kind of mad for his little brother, his protective temperament flaring. But he forced himself to breathe through that, and remember this was Marco.

Marco, who was no doubt worried about the well-being of Ace’s little brother. Marco, who knew Luffy had still a lot to learn about the Grand Line and the New World. Marco, who was a nurturer at heart, and believed in attempting a myriad of unorthodox methods to achieve the results he thought possible.

“Good strength, but too much air,” Marco said to Sanji, as he knocked aside one of those kicks Sanji was so proud of, easy as swatting a fly. His leg was clad with haki, and Sanji smacked clean against the deck. The tip of Marco’s sandal tapped the plank right in front of Sanji’s Adam’s apple—a throat slit or crushed, depending on Marco’s form.

“Solid on the offensive, but there’s more you can do than just cut,” he said to Zoro, meeting swords with one strong talon, gripping the cross of three blades tightly. Marco slid under Zoro’s guard and punched the heel of his hand up, smacking the swordsman under the chin. He then curled his fingers around the back of Zoro’s neck—a broken spine—and dropped him aside like a misbehaved kitten.

And finally, as Luffy came in with a barrage of punches, Marco said to him, “effective strategy, but you can get more creative than that.” With a swipe of his talon, Marco snatched one of Luffy’s fists out of the sky, dodging past the other. He kicked up onto the railing just behind him and pinned Luffy against it by the wrist. In another heartbeat, Marco’s flipping the rest of Luffy over the railing and socking him down into the ocean. Kill thoroughly demonstrated. Luffy’s body bounced back up with the sound of stretching elastic, and Marco released him, allowing Luffy to snap back into shape, bouncing to a stop onboard. Luffy laid amidst a puddle of ocean water, clearly drained of all strength.

Game, set, match. The most humiliating part of this for the Strawhats, Ace thought, was probably that Marco had taken precisely seven seconds with each of them. Which meant, of course, that he could’ve taken less.

“What the…” Sanji grunted, pulling himself up on shaky hands. “You kick harder than the shitty old man.”

“How do you get your skin that hard?” Zoro wasn’t out of breath, but his pupils seemed a bit wobbly as he cracked his neck from side to side, realigning everything after that hit to the chin. “It’s like you were made of steel.”

Luffy was making his usual pitiful noises, after a dunk in the sea. “I can’t stand up… I feel so weak…”

Even if Vivi hadn’t been off the boat, this whole match could’ve happened in the time it took a trip to the bathroom. Ace breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth, swayed onto the balls of his feet and—

— _crack!_

The sound of armament haki on armament haki was weirdly dull, yet metallic. Ace’s shin met Marco’s forearm and Ace, upside down, grinned.

“Listen up, you three,” he commanded. Palm smacking onto the deck, Ace swiftly pivoted 90 degrees and folded himself down, avoiding the spinning kick Marco would’ve landed in his gut otherwise. “Devil fruits may give you a strong advantage, but there are always ways to fight their users.”

“Do you know the three types of devil fruits?” Marco asked. With fluid grace he used the momentum of his kick to transition right into a punch, one that caught Ace in the shoulder. Elbow buckling, Ace leaned all his weight into his feet, getting a leg on either side of Marco’s back, pulling Marco into a hold. Birdbrain that he was, Marco kept the phoenix’s hollow bones even in full human form, which gave Ace a significant advantage in grappling.

“Paramecia, Logia,” Zoro answered, counting them off his fingers.

“Animal!” Luffy exclaimed.

“That’s Zoan, you idiot,” Sanji muttered.

“And which do you think is the hardest to deal with?”

“Logia, right?” said Sanji. “Like Ace here. Hard to imagine dealing with an opponent made of just some matter.”

“That’s what people typically think,” Marco agreed. Even with Ace’s weight suddenly all on top of him, he knew better than to give up the little leeway he still had below. Elbows dropping, Marco did something clever with his hips that tumbled Ace off to the side. It didn’t seem strategic at first, gaining Marco nothing except the momentary respite from Ace’s weight (because Ace still had his legs wrapped tightly around Marco). But when one of Ace’s arm hit the floor, he also felt the familiar weight of his dagger being pulled from his belt. Ah—that’s what Marco wanted. 

The blade came plunging down into Ace’s flesh, which promptly dissipated into fire. His arm reformed, of course, with no harm done, but Ace still took the time to shoot Marco a grumpy frown.

“My bad,” Marco apologized. “But you see, Logias like Ace can seem practically invulnerable to regular people.”

“Are you the same way?” Zoro asked, evaluating stare taking note of the blue flame wisps that tend to escape whenever Marco fought somewhat seriously (Ace was secretly proud of having warranted the flames). Marco made a gesture that was half shrug, half nod.

“I won’t get into details, but pretty much. Cutting me with your sword won’t have any effect. However—there are ways to hurt even a Logia.”

In a single fluid motion, Marco tossed the dagger over to Ace’s hand and gestured Ace forward.

“Even when I am in phoenix mode, Ace can still—”

Ace flexed his legs and pinned Marco back down by the hips. For the sake of demonstration, Marco had turned one arm into blue flames, and Ace flipped the blade in his grip, tip pointed toward Marco. He now covered the dagger with haki, and plunged it down—

—into the wooden deck. Then quickly, before Marco could react, Ace released the dagger and with haki-blackened fingertips, pinched a spot on Marco’s wing.

“...Ow.” Looking bewildered yet amused, Marco shifted back to full human, where a little red mark had blossomed on his arm. Ace looked down proudly at it, sitting back on Marco’s lap.

“This is why Gramps’ punches still hurt you, Luffy,” Ace explained. He leered down at Marco, tongue poking out between his teeth. “Hey, this is a nice view.”

It certainly was—let Ace see the precise angles and shadows of Marco’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed and cleared his throat.

“It’s called haki, something I’m sure all three of you can train in the long run, yoi.” To Ace’s ears, well-attuned to the cadences of his fellow commander’s typical tone, Marco sounded rushed—slightly flustered, perhaps. As much as Ace didn’t want to, he forfeited his comfortable seat, pulling Marco up with him at the same time. Marco brushed invisible dirt off the slip of cloth he called a shirt as he continued addressing the Strawhats, like nothing was out of the ordinary. “Don’t be too hard on yourselves though, you’ve just gotten to Paradise.”

Later, Marco found his way up to the crow’s nest once more, and Ace accepted Luffy’s invitation to Sanji’s late-night snack—which was really just a second dinner for the bottomless pit of Luffy’s stomach—in the kitchen. Ace was a little more wary of Luffy this time, sensing his little brother’s schemes weren’t quite over yet. 

“Hey, Ace.” Sure enough, Luffy was using his thinking voice. That never boded well for Ace. “Remember when Makino told me what a crush was?”

Ace’s knife and fork clattered loudly against this plate. Sanji, enjoying a small plate of his own, turned an incredulous look to his captain. 

“A crush?”

“Like, _on_ people,” Luffy clarified. “Not crushing people. I know how to do that, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Sanji echoed.

“So Nami was sick recently, right?” Luffy told Ace, speaking around the huge chunks of grilled cheese and vegetables in his mouth. “And I actually thought, that looked a lot like what Makino said was a crush! Nami’s face was red all the time, her eyes were unfocused, she had to lean on people a lot—wait, Ace, you’re not sick right?”

“Of course not,” Ace said, too offended to register the implications. “I’ve never been sick my whole life.”

“Oh okay! So you have a crush on the pineapple guy then!”

Ace choked. And then he swung.

“Whoa– Wait, Ace! Hang on, why are you attacking me?!” Luffy yelped in protest as he ducked and hopped over and stretched away from each of Ace’s attacks. They were both too used to this song and dance happening over dinner to let it affect the food, so the table of delicious grilled veggies were left perfectly alone as furniture around it got tumbled around and vaguely destroyed. It didn’t take long for Luffy to start trying to hit back. “I’m right though, aren’t I?! I mean, you’re not red but you’re always staring at him and touching him—”

“Keep talking Luffy,” Ace threatened, “and I’ll tie you to a fishing pole and use you to lure in seaking.”

“You’re _embarrassed_!” So giddy was Luffy that he didn’t even seem to mind the punch to the solar plexus. He was already doubled over in laughter anyways. “Oh wow, this is just like the time with Sabo—”

“ _Nope_ , shut your  _face_ —”

The consequent tumble sent them both careening out the kitchen door. The sound of splintering wood masked Sanji’s sigh, and his aggrieved remark, “okay, now I definitely see how you’re brothers.”

 

* * *

When the Strawhats were disembarking for their trek across the desert, Ace announced they were leaving.

“You sure?” Marco asked, surprised and slightly concerned. He didn’t know how Ace’s original meeting with Luffy went down, but a day and a half seemed an awfully short amount of time to spend together, considering the brothers had been apart for three years.

(Not to mention, Marco still had no way of promising that the next time Ace and Luffy met _wouldn’t_ be in front of an execution platform at Marineford.)

“Yes,” Ace answered, sounding wholly at peace with the decision. And just like that, the worry in Marco’s stomach settled. Kicking off from the railing, Ace landed in the Striker and loosened the rope tying it to Merry. He grinned up at Marco and everybody else. “Luffy’s in good hands. This is one hell of a crew you’ve got, little brother.”

Laughing proudly, Luffy propped his chin on one palm, waved the other one over the railing.

“Yeah, I know. You too!” A rubbery hand wrapped around Marco’s shoulder and shook him, none-too-gently. “Marco’s great! We like him a lot!”

Chuckling himself, Marco gently untangled himself from Luffy’s grip and hopping up onto the railing. “Thanks, Strawhat. I’ll take care of Ace, don’t you worry.”

“Ace will take care of you too,” Luffy replied with cryptic deviousness. Deciding it was better he didn’t know, Marco turned toward the rest of the crew.

“Miss Pickpocket, thanks for the shirt.” A simple button-up in dark red, it was the only thing Marco asked for from Nami’s trip to Horihana. He even had to trade away his personal den den mushi for it, though he didn’t let on that he was going to give it to Nami anyways. “Don’t hesitate to call, however slim the chances are that you’ll actually need our help.”

“Of course!” Somewhere along the line, Nami had all but adopted Marco as her own personal benevolent benefactor. This was good, because her attempts to swindle Marco had become less lies and more outright requests, and have so far netted her a collection of phoenix feathers of her own, approximately 20,000 belis from Marco’s clothing, a top-of-the-line espionage-friendly den den mushi, an expensive fountain pen that used to be Marco’s favorite, and promised access to Marco’s caches of reference maps on every Whitebeard-claimed island she might visit. Now she gave him a full-on hug, warm and slightly smug. “I’ll put the den den mushi’s radar capabilities to good use when I draw my maps.”

“The Sniper.” Range weapons were by no means Marco’s forte, but after watching Usopp at his handicrafts, Marco had gifted Usopp a little black blade knife—an effective weapon, but an even more effective whittling tool in the hands of an artist. “Keep up the good work.”

“Ye-yes!” Like a kid being proudly praised, Usopp snapped to attention and practically saluted. Marco could have patted him on the head.

“Doctor!”

Marco had to call for the little reindeer, because Chopper was still in a bit of a tiff from this morning. They’d been up since dusk comparing medicinal notes, reconciling the veritable encyclopedia of scientific facts Chopper had memorized with the seemingly contrary real life experiences that Marco possessed. The argument was productive, sure, but it still left Chopper miffed, pouting a little bit away as Marco said his goodbyes.

“You’re doing a great job, keep it up.”

“Ah, shut up! I don’t need your compliments! That doesn’t make me happy at all!”

“Princess Vivi.” The girl’s gaze was bright yet mature, and Marco knew he would not regret making her the offer of diplomacies and trade with kingdoms in the Whitebeard territories. She would get her country back, Marco was sure, and when she did, who knew when some allies in the New World would come in handy?

“Thank you for your generosity, Marco-san.”

“And you three.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get stronger,” Sanji said, a self-effacing smirk curled around his cigarette.

“Train harder,” Zoro grunted, nodding once decisively at Marco.

“We’ll do the haka thing!” Luffy promised, ignoring his crewmates’ corrections of _it’s haki!_  “We’ll figure it out by the time we get to where you are, and I’ll totally kick your ass, hahahah!”

“Where are you even headed now?” Usopp asked, looking concerned. Behind him, Nami was smacking Luffy for _issuing such a baseless challenge to the Whitebeard pirates, how big of a moron are you?!_

“South, I hear.”

At Ace’s knowing wink, Marco sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “It’s impolite to eavesdrop, yoi.”

“It’s not eavesdropping if you were on the den den mushi literally right next to me.”

“Being on the opposite side of a wall isn’t right next to you.”

“But anyways, Luffy!” Marco’s wings lit up, and during the day, the feathers were the same shade of bright light blue as the sky. Ace wrapped himself in fire too, the red glow warm and friendly. “Next time we meet,” Ace swore, “will be at the peak of the world.” 

“Yeah!”

And in twin bursts of flames, Marco and Ace took off, leaving the Strawhats to their own adventures once more.

* * *

(Later, as they're walking into the desert, Nami was fiddling with the small den den mushi, delighting in its user-friendly interface and multitude of effects.

"He's so good to us!" she exclaimed, taking another mental note about sand dune heights for the map she was building in her mind.

"I guess these are the perks of marrying into a Yonko family," Sanji mused.

"It's like we're the in-laws by way of Luffy," Usopp laughed.

"Maybe we can consider something like this for ourselves as we go along. Who knows how much money we can get!"

"Yes, Nami-swan, that's such a  _brilliant_ idea!")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely the hella rushed interlude chapter, because as much as I love the Strawhats, I highkey want to be writing about not-them. And, according to the Taika Waititi School of Writing, if I get bored with myself, I should just change the scene. But I really just wanted to write Marco adopting all these kids and helping them with life. So lo and behold, four false starts and 8,000 publishable words out of 10,000.
> 
> Marco would absolutely know Sanji was a Vinsmoke, considering the curly brow and the fact that they have such a ridiculous naming scheme, lmao. I wanted to write that scene of recognition so bad, but alas, couldn't quite figure out how to fit it in.
> 
> According to [this list of character ages](https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/1xde9m/one_piece_character_age_list/), Shanks is 39 after 3D2Y, and I know we see Marco at Fishman Island with Whitebeard 20 years ago, but I deadass refuse to make him any older than 42. He'd still be 5 years older than Shanks, and that looks about... right...? One year older than Mihawk.
> 
> Hit me up on [tumblr](http://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/), yell about MarcoAce and One Piece with me. Leave comments please!


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But I’ve already broken his heart once,” Sabo scoffed, “what’s a second?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought it was only going to be three parts, but this whole chunk got away from me, so now there are... four parts... I think...
> 
> Sabo stole all the way into my heart and now the end game has changed. Hope y'all still stick around!

Sabo often dreamed of fire.

Those were the only times he experienced a particularly bitter brand of helpless fear. Since being taken in by the Revolutionary Army at the tender age of ten, Sabo’s become well-acquainted with fear. Fear of people’s cruelty made him fight harder, fear of the unknown made him plan better. Fear of his own failings pushed him into levels of overdrive that have helped him succeed in seemingly hopeless situations. Sabo knew what to do with all but one kind of fear, and he was quickly growing tired of that one.

The night he was supposed to leave the winter island nation of St. Glass, for example, he woke up in sweat-ridden paralysis. Breath seized in his throat, and the conglomerate voice of the RA—every member who’s had the misfortune of sharing proximity with his nightmares—in his mind told him to _inhale, exhale, count one, two, three, out, two, three_.

Sabo breathed, and squeezed away the after image of fire behind his eyes, the crawl of burning all over his body. He was truly, _truly_ tired of this.

As he rolled off the mattress with a groan to pack his meager belongings, Sabo remembered a day, three years ago, after he turned seventeen. For whatever reason, the dreams had been particularly bad that season, the vivid sensations of pain yanking Sabo out of sleep literally every night. Even training and taking on mission after mission to the point of exhaustion didn’t keep them from coming. Hack had suggested perhaps Sabo was on the brink of something—Sabo thought that something was death from exhaustion, both physical and mental.

That day, he remembered chatting with Koala about potential cures over a shared inventory shift. Koala had just finished a solo mission in a city esteemed for its medical practice, and she learned there something called exposure therapy. Sabo asked whether Koala wanted him to set himself on fire again, or just sit around a bonfire for a while. After smacking Sabo on the head, Koala pouted, and started digging around her satchel.

_You know, I actually just read something about a hot rookie pirate right now—literally! They said he ate the Mera Mera no Mi. Hiken… Hiken something? Jace? Lace? Damn, I wish I saved the paper. I meant something like that, where you wield the fire, instead of fear it._

Sabo had hummed and kept at his chores. Privately, he thought about the singular memory that started it all, the awful explosion of flames that constituted the worst pain he has experienced to date. To become fire, to watch it crawl through his skin and melt away his flesh again… Gods no. Nothing, Sabo decided then, could make him do something crazy like eat the Mera Mera no Mi. Not unless there was some other even more unimaginable level of pain that could override his fear of flames.

Perhaps Sabo should have tried something akin to exposure therapy. Nothing else, after all, had seemed to help at all with getting rid of those dreams. With a frustrated exhale, Sabo slung his neatly-packed duffle over the shoulder with the flesh that didn’t feel anything anymore. As usual, there was no rhyme or reason to the nightmares—he had no idea what set them off this time. Maybe the snow, and the cold Sabo loved so much, but had difficulty regulating his body temperature in, thanks to the burn scars. Maybe exhaustion.

Maybe it was guilt. Sabo had once again left that afternoon’s negotiations with St. Glass’s reigning monarch, King Borasilica, empty-handed. Consciously, he knew the unfortunate proceedings could hardly be blamed on him—the king was a nervous wreck of a successor, desperate to keep his country afloat through a crashing economy after his father’s passing. Refugee resources or humanitarian concerns were not at the top of his priorities list right now. But Ivankov always accused Sabo of having an “overdeveloped guilt complex,” and Sabo was now at the end of his deadline to rendezvous with Koala, having nothing to show for this leg of the mission. As he leveraged himself out a side window, Sabo thought his guilt was hardly unwarranted.

Sneaking out from even sanctioned stays was RA protocol, for maximum retention of secrecy. Their entire organization was dependent on their ability to keep operations covert, after all. Sabo’s true deadline for wrangling a sanctuary agreement from King Borasilica would seem like it came without warning, giving nobody any chances to follow. A small, battery-powered scooter was waiting dockside to carry Sabo across a small ocean to the Isle of Solum, where Koala was waiting. Having checked the winds and his sea charts earlier today, he calculated he’d arrive before noon the next day.

...Or at least, that was the plan. As Sabo levered himself out a window and onto the parapet roofs, he sensed an air of… difference in the castle. Guards, when he saw them through the windows, were looking around more fervently. Servants kept their eyes down and scampered from post to post, the clear body language of people trying to stay as ignorant as possible.

Sabo found out what was happening by the time he got to the dusty turret on the northeastern corner of the castle. Through the whipping snow-spotted gales, he could make out little lantern lights bobbing on horseback, galloping off toward the docks. Senses tingling, Sabo thought about bringing out the hard-plated covert ops den den mushi from his duffel—but thought better of it. This was nothing if not an opportunity ripe for investigation, perhaps gain a point of leverage or two.

With a soft grunt of effort, Sabo swung himself down parallel to the castle wall, and began free-climbing down. Snowy winds buffeted him, managing to swirl under the collar and up the sleeves of his thick winter coat. His haki-enforced fingers helped him cling tight to the stone, but the elements still put up a hell of a fight.

Once at the bottom, Sabo pursed his lips and whistled at a specific key—the call of the snow furet, the local apex predator. Also a fantastic sprinter as a species. He had spent most of his evenings out here besting and befriending the fight-prone animals, and now managed to court a favor out of the largest mother furet of them all. With his fingers buried securely in its thick outer coat, Sabo and the furet sprinted for the docks at top speed.

Breaking the forest line, Sabo only _just_ overtook the horse-riders, flipping out of his perch on the furet to a stop in front of them. Everyone, Sabo included, had on protective goggles and some kind of mask or bandana that obscured their faces. But the riders were also unexpecting enough to be bearing riding leathers, armors, and weapons with noble insignias on them. The king’s mark bore a great purple iris—these insignias were of a fox-like creature circumscribed in Ancient Glassian script.

“Informants,” Sabo guessed, as the mother furet melted back into the woods. “Courtiers from the castle sent you?”

“Who the hell are you?” one of the riders snarled.

“Tell me, what’s the going price of treason these days?”

“Kill him, we have to go.”

Well that just wouldn’t do. Pipe drawn and out, Sabo counted: six people from the original group of riders, plus four more at the rendezvous point. Their boats were docked real close, and the moment fighting broke out, they would all be running seaward. Sabo’s own scooter was a little ways down.

“But I haven’t even finished asking all my questions yet,” Sabo mused, just as a gunshot cued the battle.

Dodging bullets was something every RA officer could do in their sleep, and Sabo’s shoes gripped blessedly well on the snowy terrain. He aimed first for the figure on the calmest-looking horse, vaulting up and knocking the enemy out with a blow to the side of the temple. The figure fell out of the saddle and Sabo fell in. Now that he’d literally leveled the playing field (at least against the others still on horseback), he was ready to play.

A squeeze of his heels, and the mare obediently cantered forward. The horses all knew and trusted each other, which Sabo used to his advantage by getting real up close and personal with the informants, pipe twirling in hand. Heavy iron could crack skulls, even through royally commissioned helmets. His mare was truly a splendid creature, obedient to his every minute gesture, and Sabo blocked off one of the last four runners heading for their boat.

“Tell me where you’re headed,” he demanded, swinging his pipe. He aimed to miss, and to let the dripping blood still on his weapon splatter onto the man’s face. There was a sound a lot like fear, from behind the man’s thick mask.

“Like hell I’ll tell—”

— _thunk._ Another one down. Sabo swung his mare around and chased down the third to last informant, knocking the figure out with a none-too-kind blow to the back of the head. Two more to go, but those two—one who had hopped from a horse, and one of the new additions—had already made it on their boat, casting off from the dock. 

With a moment’s calculation, Sabo hoisted his pipe like a spear and threw it with all his strength from horseback. His aim was true, and the projectile weapon arced through the air, slamming one of the figures right over the side of the ship. Sabo could hear swearing from the last man standing, as his comrade failed to resurface in the frigid sea.

Then Sabo hopped from the mare, thanking her with a fond pat to the snout. He made quick work sprinting to his scooter, revving the engine to its highest power to catch up with the boat. As he drew closer, he could see the figure by moonlight. The dark red coat with royal insignia on the left lapel, the thick wool mask pulled up over the nose. The protective goggles, fur-lined hood, and leather gloves were all part and parcel of St. Glass’ standard issue guards wear. Yet, Sabo sensed something different about this guy. His stance radiated more power and self-assurance than any of the others, and the way he calmly stood waiting for Sabo… A seasoned fighter. Perhaps Sabo shouldn’t have thrown his pipe away after all.

Suddenly, a twinge of pain against his right temple. Dammit, the after effects of the nightmare returning. Sabo ignored it with professionalism, having fought through so much worse than a migraine. He swallowed around a dry throat, and flooded his hands with haki.

Boats impacted, because Sabo might have stopped the engine, but not before his scooter could falter in its acceleration. Sabo hopped with the hit, hoping to take advantage of the moment—but so did his opponent, who somehow gained much more air than rationally possible. Once in the air, Sabo could only brace against his opponent’s flip kick, which sent him crashing onto the St. Glassian boat.

“Shit—”

Having expected to be able to take down this last informant from the castle with ease, Sabo had actually put himself in quite the unfavorable situation, considering his fighting style. He wouldn’t be able to put any of his dragon techniques to use on this tiny ship, not unless he was ready to be dunked into the freezing waters alongside his opponent. And he had no weapon, unlike his opponent, who had landed across the deck and was slowly drawing a wickedly curved dagger from a scabbard.

But Sabo has done a lot more with a lot less, in his career as a Revolutionary. He’d figure something out.

His goal was incapacitation. He wanted the man alive to get a clearer sense of the state of matters in St. Glass. He was 99% sure King Borasilica himself had not betrayed Sabo’s confidence, but 99 was not 100. Plus, he needed to know where the group had originally been headed. Pushing off the western coast of St. Glass meant three possible island destinations, one far more likely than the others. It’d be critical intel, if they had indeed been headed for the Isle of Solum.

“Who the hell are you, yoi?”

Raising an eyebrow at the man’s question (and mentally documenting what seemed like a verbal tic), Sabo began creeping to his left. His opponent obliged, doing the same across from him so that they were circling one another, getting a measure of the fight that laid ahead.

“You’re a pretty shitty information broker, if you can’t even recognize the man you’re trying to sell out,” Sabo pointed out. The other man’s footsteps were literally silent, clueing Sabo into the possibility that he wasn’t entirely human. Fruit user? Sky Islander? Mink? Some other humanoid species Sabo’s never heard of from some distant island, perfectly evolved for assassination?

“Ah, there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding,” the other man said. He still hasn’t let up his on-guard stance though, so Sabo didn’t know how seriously to take the statement. “I’m not an information broker.”

Fat chance. Any actual royal decree, Sabo would’ve heard about. King Borasilica was terrible at many things, and lying was one of them. So: action taken by the pit of vipers that called themselves royal courtiers, kept secret from Sabo and the King, the two people trying to negotiate sanctuary status for refugees from the Isle? The group of men prepared for battle sailing in the general direction of the Isle in the dark of night?

“Right, and I’m the king himself.”

The other man chuckled, “as if the current king is anywhere as skilled in combat as you, yoi. Uh, no offense to the crown.”

Sabo stepped forward and swung. He knew better than to pull his punches, but he also knew that if he didn’t do something, the other man’s guard would never break. The punch wasn’t intended to land, and sure enough, the man smacked Sabo’s hand away with the flat of his dagger.

Now that was just patronizing, Sabo thought, scowling.

“Don’t be so hasty,” the man chided. “I just want to say I’m actually in the same boat as you. Both figuratively and literally, I suppose—”

A loud splash and yell interrupted him. Sabo wheeled around to see one of the bodies he had left onshore lifting himself up onto the boat. The third man had a scimitar, but waved it around in useless, shaky arcs as he shook from the cold water.

“Oh c’mon,” Sabo complained, haki wielded and about to deliver a finishing blow to their new arrival, “why did you even bother?”

But then—there was a flash of blue in Sabo’s peripheral vision. In the brief half-second that Sabo was distracted, the first man—the only worthy opponent out of the bunch—had somehow jumped the length of the ship and gotten hold of the frozen man. The scimitar clattered to the ground, and now both men in red coats were out of Sabo’s reach.

“Oh no you don’t.” Whatever, structural integrity of the tiny boat be damned. Sabo planted his feet and conjured his strength into his arms. “ _Ryusoken_ …”

With the unbalanced weight of the frozen man on him, Sabo’s opponent seemed to realize he was cornered. He had enough traction off one foot to either fling himself or the frozen man into the boat cabin, but not both. For the frozen man to be caught in Sabo’s attack would be the end of him, and if the man chose to be hit himself… Well, Sabo would reevaluate the character integrity of palace mooks as he slit the frozen man’s throat. With any luck, the actual fighter would survive Sabo’s attack and come back for more.

And that was exactly how it happened. With one decisive flex of an arm, the man threw his frozen companion through the window into safety, and all the sharp bits of Sabo’s dragon breath attack slammed right into him. Sabo had just enough time to huff in respect before the guy was blown away.

“Your friend’s crazy,” Sabo told the frozen guy’s lifeless body, right after snapping his neck (faster to crush than to cut with his hands). Haki sense tingling, Sabo jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed alongside half the boat cabin. The guy was back, this time with honest to god _wings_ , big blue ones that had slammed easily through layers of wood. The goggles, the mask, and the coat have all been cut to shreds, whatever’s left barely clinging to the guy, and there was no mistaking the mark of the Whitebeard pirates big and brazen on the man’s chest.

“Dammit,” the pirate said, with a small sad-looking frown on his face as he looked down at the dead man. “I was using that, yoi.”

“Here I thought you were companions.” If Koala had been here, she’d already know who this pirate was, thanks to her penchant for obsessive reconnaissance prior to a mission. Sabo was more of a blunt force trauma kind of guy. “What’s a pirate doing stealing royal intelligence?”

“Didn’t I already tell you I didn’t take any intelligence? Not yet, anyways.”

“Nice wings,” Sabo said about the wide expanses of blue and gold fire stretched on either side of the pirate’s torso. The distinctive color scheme was far enough away from the red flames of his nightmares that he actually meant it.

“Nice claws,” the pirate returned. Sabo obligingly flexed his hands, still covered in black. “So let’s review. There’s information critical to you that these guys were about to escape the country with, so you’ve hunted down and eradicated them.”

“But you,” Sabo understood, “are not one of them.” He narrowed his eyes. “Then why are you wearing their clothing?”

“Believe it or not, I was after intel too.” The blue flames drew closer in on the pirate’s body, so he was once again more man than bird. None of Sabo’s fighting instincts have calmed down though, so the man was still dangerous. “I don’t suppose I can get what I need out of you.”

Sabo snorted loudly. “You can try, old man.”

“Your generation,” the pirate sighed, shaking his head. Forget more man than bird—his legs glowed with gold before transforming into talons, metallic and gleaming with sharpness. Sabo got the feeling his previous _nice claws_ comment was meant ironically. “So damn rude, always _old man_ this and _ossan_ that. Looks like I gotta teach you a lesson, yoi.”

* * *

Sabo hasn’t lost yet, and he was beginning to feel weirded out about that.

There was no other way to slice it—the pirate was stronger than him. Yes, Sabo was 100% capable of recognizing that, and no, that didn’t mean Sabo was going to _stop_ trying to beat the pirate, but there was something really strange going on here.

“Are you,” he said as he struggled to catch his breath, blood dripping annoyingly over his goggles, “sick?”

The pirate looked surprised, then kind of pissed. He looked down at his hand of blue fire, and shook it out like he was trying to get the last bit of petrol out from a gas lamp.

“In a sense,” he grudgingly admitted. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“I don’t make a habit of deluding myself,” Sabo grunted. He allowed the shredded remains of his winter coat to fall to the dirt—the pirate had socked him clean across the entire stretch of water back onto land just moments earlier. With a hand clutching his cracked ribs, Sabo stumbled over to the pile of debris at the head of the dock, fumbling around for something of a good shape. “I know when I’m up against someone out of my league. The only question is, why haven’t you put an end to this yet?”

“Well you keep getting up, don’t you?” Even though the snow continued its rampage, the pirate showed no signs of noticing the cold, despite being bare-chested. He even looked a bit impressed by Sabo, traipsing closer and watching curiously as Sabo dug through the heap. “Hey, you never did tell me who you are.”

“And I won’t.”

 _Crack!_ The iron pipe Sabo unearthed would’ve smacked right into the pirate’s sharp gray eyes, had the pirate not caught the end in one haki-reinforced palm. The pirate examined the pipe, and the casual set to his lips fell away, replaced by a calculating intensity.

“Maybe I can guess." 

Without warning, the pirate’s other hand shot toward Sabo’s face. Assuming it was meant to be a punch, Sabo dodged to the side—only to see that the pirate’s fingers were outstretched, like he was aiming to grab something. A flash of understanding, and Sabo pulled his head back instead, neck muscles protesting the whiplash. He thrust out with his pipe at the same time, trying to keep the pirate’s hand away. The result was a deep enough gouge in the right lens of Sabo’s goggles that Sabo, once he was far enough away, opted to just pop the entire lens out instead of battle with the optical barrier.

“That’s playing dirty,” Sabo accused.

“I’m a pirate,” the man replied with incredulous affect.

“Still! This is a battle to the death, you gotta kill me first if you want to unmask me.”

“It’d be a bloody shame to kill you, yoi.” He still slid into an offensive position though, so Sabo figured the man was nothing but a dirty liar. “But if you insist.”

When they clashed, it happened again. The pirate’s fighting pattern had been clear to see since their first exchange: he’d let Sabo past his defenses and hit him hard with an attack, and take advantage of Sabo’s closeness to deliver a blow of his own. An unsustainable fighting pattern, if it weren’t for the fact that blue flames sprouted like miracles everywhere Sabo induced an injury, healing the pirate back up like nothing had ever been wrong. Sabo, on the other hand, bore his wounds into the next exchange, and the one after that. According to his calculations of the pirate’s strength and confidence, Sabo really should have lost about four exchanges ago.

Except, the pirate was getting weaker somehow. Sabo wasn’t arrogant enough to assume his attacks had anything to do with it, but he thought he was grasping the tail end of a pattern. The first time blue flames were noticeably slow to manifest, the pirate had gotten a hold of Sabo’s sleeve and sliced the cloth (and skin underneath) open to the shoulder. He would have torn right through Sabo’s mask too, if Sabo hadn’t kneed him out of the way (almost dislocating his own hip in the scramble for leverage). The most ostentatious drop of power came when the pirate’s talon caught on the edge of Sabo’s duffel, and RA papers (encoded of course, but still) went flying. Sabo’s hat came tumbling out too, and the pirate faltered for just a moment when he spied it. The hit Sabo managed to land on him then was still a bright red welt across his pectoral. 

And now, the blue flames seemed like they were outright refusing to come. The pirate remained fully human for longer as well, the flashes of talon no longer as golden as they had once been. It wasn’t that Sabo now had a 100% chance of defeating the guy, it was just that the pattern made no sense, and Sabo was pissed.

“Listen,” he said, after another clash of haki. It’s been a while since Sabo’s found an opponent outside the RA whose haki could stand against his. At least the pirate wasn’t getting any weaker on that front. Was there some sort of environmental factor, depleting the pirate? “I’m actually not trying to be condescending, for once, but this doesn’t seem like a very fair battle for you. What the hell is going on?” Then, based on a hunch, “and why do you want to know who I am so badly?”

It spoke to just how much the pirate’s weakened, that he answered, “what if I told you your identity may be the key to my ‘sickness?’”

“Nice try, but I still can’t tell you who I am.”

The pirate’s leg shifted, and Sabo slipped quickly into a block. He lifted his pipe—a feint—and caught the pirate’s lifted leg in a deadly grip. _Ryusoken_ —

“You—”

In an act of wild balance, the pirate actually lifted all his weight for Sabo to bear. The grip that would’ve easily crushed his whole leg was stymied by an armor of haki—but too little, too late, and Sabo still dealt sizable damage to the muscles and bone. Having sacrificed one leg though, the pirate lifted the other and socked Sabo hard enough in the chest to drop them both, Sabo on his back. Vision blurring in the action, Sabo gathered just enough of his senses to lift his pipe—a sharp and rusted end of it—to the pirate’s neck. The dust cleared, and Sabo felt the stinging pressure of a talon against his own neck. A tie.

The pirate’s breath was labored, and sweat trickled down his brow as he scrutinized Sabo beneath him. His eyes were glazed and jaw clenched, the whole of him visible only in monochrome, practically glowing by the hazy white moonlight.

“Then let me just ask you this,” the pirate panted. “Do you know the name Portgas D. Ace?”

Time stopped, and Sabo saw fire.

“Who the hell is—”

He had to remember to breathe. He had to remember _to remember_ to breathe. Clawing the thick wool mask off, Sabo sucked down awful, wheezing breaths. He tried to relocate his body, the one weapon he’s honed and maintained throughout his life that now felt two steps too removed. Like he couldn’t get his hands back, like it had all become the patch of unfeeling skin on his shoulder. The pirate—no, that didn’t matter. Sabo couldn’t feel his back, the earth and ground and he couldn’t feel the cold of the snow drenching his coat, just the heat the heat the heat—

“...bo, _Sabo!_ Listen to me, I need you to…”

“What—” Sabo slurred through insensate lips. His pipe fell heavy onto his own torso and he couldn’t feel his neck either, but the pirate was seated up now, no more gold no more talons. The blur of hair, yellow in the moonlight. “...What did you do to me?”

Some fast-acting poison? Some Paramecia ability? Some—some kind of needle in Sabo’s brain? That’s what it felt like, a stabbing pain in his mind telling him to _remember_ . Thousands of points of buzzing pinpricks concentrated onto one single square centimeter of skin, times a thousand, a million. That’s what burning felt like, and the wrinkled skin of scars that have been numb for years all came back to screaming life. Like static, like electricity, like _fucking fire_ —

“—concentrate, Sabo! Please, don’t fight it, let the memories—”

Pain made Sabo useless, and being useless made Sabo _angry_.

“ _What the hell did you do to me!?_ ”

He heard the attack hit, the dull sound of impact and sick crunch of bone. He saw the pirate disappear from his vision, and shoved it down, shoved all the nauseating agony down to find the spark of his instincts. Animalistic senses brought him down on the pirate’s collapsed form, and he drew up the pirate’s broken body. Stared him in the eye. Blood was black in moonlight.

“—Sabo. Your name is Sabo. Concentrate.” The pirate’s words were garbled by pain and bloody phlegm.

“How the hell do you know my name?” And why was Sabo crying? Why did he sound so desperate?

“Sabo you _know_ him. You know Ace.” No, he didn’t. He didn’t know anybody named Ace. He only knew the pain of an ice pick gouging out his brains and the threat of fire encroaching on his vision. He only knew his hands and feet and body riddled by scars and ten years worth of memories, nothing before the burning.

“What’s _happening_ to me?” His voice, when he spoke, was broken. He sounded terrified. He sounded like himself at ten-years-old, collapsed in a clean and beautiful city on the wrong side of the walls but no, that couldn’t be right, he’d been on ships and dilapidated hideouts since he was reborn, that memory must’ve come from the wrong side of the fire and he couldn’t possibly know—

The glaring moonlight blocked out. The steady pressure of a hand on the back of his head, knocking off his hood and fingers threading through his hair. The warm scent of a human, the pirate’s shoulder and chest against his forehead.

“You’re remembering,” the pirate said, voice an urgent rumble Sabo could feel through his face. “I’m so sorry to do this to you, but you have to remember.”

When Sabo’s fingers came up this time, it wasn’t to attack, but to clutch. He held onto the pirate holding him, clung to the thin and damaged shirt, the bruised and broken flesh. He allowed himself to open his mouth in a soundless scream. The fire was coming, and there was no holding it back. But Sabo needed to ask once more question, before he could go: 

“Who are you?”

The pirate held Sabo tighter against the stark black outlines of his tattoo.

“My name is Marco,” the pirate whispered, “I’m here to get you back to Ace.”

* * *

Sabo remembered—

_Fire, crackling in the newly laid brick fireplace. Father liked the texture, so Mother got the sky blue bricks imported from some faraway island to match the color scheme of her beloved parlor. Sabo had run out to the edge of town the day the bricks arrived, and watched as guards held the delivery people at swordpoint, arm-lengths away. The delivery people were covered in the grime of the sea, their hands the exact same shade of powdered blue as the bricks. The bricks were wrapped in new plastic sheets, loaded onto polished oak carts, and brought away by the impeccably dressed servants in Mother’s service. The head butler dropped a sack of coins in the sand, disposed of his white linen gloves in the same manner, and walked away from the delivery people with a sniff of disgust._

Sabo remembered—

_Fire, on the torches that the guards held. Those were the lights he assiduously avoided every night he snuck out to the Gate. He went, and he sat in the shadows by the bars. The bars were surely meant to keep the riffraffs of Gray Terminal out, but to Sabo, all they did was keep him in. He listened to the rough talk, the unfamiliar pidgins and dialects, the occasional fights that were peppered with grunts and yells and screams. One night, the guards’ torchlights got too close, and as Sabo narrowly eeled his way out of their grasps, he overheard a guard say something about street rats sneaking in._

_That gave Sabo an idea. Two weeks later, with just a knife, some rope, and the well-worn clothes on his back, Sabo snuck out to the Gate again. This time, he deliberately kept his back turned as the torchlights approached. When the guards successfully caught him, they ordered the bars be lifted, spat in his face, and threw the filthy street rat right back out to Gray Terminal, where he belonged._

_Flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him, Sabo laughed, long and hard. Because he was on the other side of the bars now. He was free._

Sabo remembered—

_Fire, from the nuzzle of the pistol a mugger aimed at him. He had never been shot at, and the first experience threw his heart into wild palpitations. The mugger’s bag of loot was still clasped in Sabo’s hand though, so he kept his head and breath as steady as possible._

_Suddenly, the mugger grunted, and collapsed. Another boy stood where he fell, with messy black hair and a face full of freckles. The boy’s eyes were sharp and mean as they spied the bag in Sabo’s hand._

_“I defeated him,” the boy declared, making quick work of tying the mugger up, “so that loot is mine.”_

_“Yeah right,” Sabo said incredulously, stepping forward quickly to kick the pistol away into a pile of trash. “I was about to take him down. You just interfered.”_

_“No, I saved your life.” The boy scowled, folding his arms and the long metal pipe he held menacingly across his chest. “Don’t be ungrateful and hand it over.”_

_“No way—”_

_Sabo’s stomach chose that moment to grumble, noisy and long. He hadn’t eaten in two days, and as much as he wanted to keep his hard-earned treasure, he didn’t think he could outrun or outfight the other boy in this state. The boy’s smirk said he knew as much too. So through gritted teeth, Sabo made his offer._

_“Fifty-fifty. I need this to trade for food.”_

_“Eighty-twenty,” the boy said, with an impervious lift of his chin._

_“Fifty-fifty.”_

_“Sixty-forty.”_

_“Fifty-fifty.”_

_“Fine,” the boy snapped. “Fifty-fifty, hand it over.”_

_Sabo burst out into laughter, pulling open the drawstring bag and obligingly sorting out the loot. “You’re a terrible negotiator, you know that?”_

_“Shut up,” the boy grumbled. He held out his own bag, and stared down Sabo with a scowl as every piece of gold was placed inside. “I don’t accept criticism from idiots who don’t even know how to hunt for their own food.”_

_“Hunt?” Sabo asked, startled. “You mean—?”_

_He glanced off in the direction of the woods, the looming shadow of Mt. Corvo. With a taunting grin, the boy hoisted his own bag up and began to leave._

_“See you never, wimp,” he called over his shoulder. Sabo didn’t bother responding to such an immature jeer, and instead just watched the boy as he disappeared into the treeline._

Sabo remembered—

_Fire, warm and alive on a pile of tinder, seated atop a damp pile of leaves and grass._

_“Oh look, it’s the wimp.”_

_Sabo rolled his eyes and turned around, making sure the freckled boy approaching had a full look at his most appropriately derisive expression._

_“Oh look, it’s my savior.” Even though Sabo made sure his voice was dripping with as much sarcasm as possible, the boy still flashed his big white teeth._

_“Damn right. Took my advice, huh?”_

_“It wasn’t a bad idea,” Sabo admitted with a shrug. The snake he had managed to catch earlier that evening was skewered over the fire, meat browning beautifully. “Stupid of me to not realize it sooner.”_

_“Yup.” The loud pop of “P” was meant to be annoying, Sabo knew, yet he was still annoyed. He shoved the boy’s shoulder._

_“What are you doing here?” Using the momentum of the shove, the boy got closer to the fire and folded his legs down beneath him, hands held out to the flames. “And don’t make yourself so comfortable!”_

_“Relax,” the boy said, “I just wanted to ask if you’d share your fire. I’ll share my food.”_

_“What food?”_

_With a jab of his thumb, the boy drew Sabo’s attention to the rope spilling from his fist over his shoulder. Sabo followed the rope with his eyes, until it came to a stop around the carcass of a giant mountain boar. The beast was easily four times the size of the boy who hunted it down, and Sabo’s eyes widened in shock and respect._

_“A fourth of this is yours,” the boy offered. “I can’t eat that much.”_

_“Fine,” Sabo heard himself say faintly. “We can share, since you’re in such a magnanimous mood.”_

_“What’s that mean?”_

_The boy already had a knife out, dressing down the boar in big, efficient strokes while Sabo fumbled for an answer, unsure if the boy was trying to set him up for a joke or was genuinely asking._

_“Magnanimous? It means uh, generous and relaxed.”_

_“Well in that case, I’m always magnanimous,” the boy said. He even grinned when Sabo scoffed. “Seriously! I keep saving your life, don’t I?”_

_“_ Keep _?”_

_“That snake is poisonous. You’d’ve died after three days of painful vomiting and diarrhea.”_

_Startled, Sabo blinked at the snake he had been so looking forward to eating. The meat still looked delicious, but now he couldn’t get the image of the snake’s scale patterns out of his mind, the brightly colored chevrons._

_“You’re welcome,” the boy singsonged, as he hauled a huge flank of boar over the fire. His stick-thin arms didn’t look like they had the strength that they did, and Sabo eyed him with newfound feeling._

_“Shouldn’t I know your name then,” Sabo asked, “if you’re going to keep saving my life or something?”_

_The boy’s eyes and freckles both were red in the firelight._

_“My name is Ace.”_

Sabo remembered—

_Fireworks, stolen from town and smuggled into the forest with the two most precious boys in his life. Ace was still a mean little kid, always ribbing Luffy and not holding back in spars with Sabo, but Sabo now knew his soft side very, very well. The two of them stole the fireworks without Luffy knowing, after all, because Ace wanted to give their little brother a surprise._

_With a grumpy, dismissive wave, Ace ordered Luffy to go hunt their dinner for the night. Sabo played along, teasing Luffy about yesterday’s boasts that Luffy could get a tusked pig from the eastern swamps all by himself. Luffy ran off with his tongue stuck out, saying he’d bring back the biggest tusked pig they’d ever seen._

_“Easy to manipulate, as always,” Ace snorted once Luffy was out of hearing range._

_“Putting up a front, as always,” Sabo returned._

_“Shut up,” Ace grumbled, pulling out the bag of illegal fireworks. “And help me do this already.”_

_It turned out the fireworks were a little harder to assemble than previously assumed._

_“Okay okay,” Sabo said in the dimming dusk light, both of them a little out of breath from all the yelling they just did at each other. “Now I’ve got it. We go Big, Stripes, light the Double Blues at the same time, Little Yellow, Big Yellow, and then the Weird One last.”_

_“Fine,” Ace growled, “then let’s—”_

_“But there’s timing and distance too. Big and Stripes basically have to be lit at the same time, but at five meters apart. Double Blues is five meters after them with a slight delay, then you gotta skip over Big Yellow to light Little Yellow, hop back over to light Little Yellow and also Weird One at practically the same time—”_

_“Alright then, so we—”_

_“I mean clearly you do Big and I do Stripes, but if I manage to get to Double Blues, you gotta get past me all the way to Little Yellow and this process really isn’t meant to be done by two kids, wow—”_

_“Are you being a wimp about this—”_

_“No I’m just pointing out we have very short legs—”_

_“_ Sabo! _”_

_Ace’s hands came down on Sabo’s shoulders. It wasn’t the pissed-off pressure Sabo had been expecting, instead something amused and even a little fond, to match the expression on Ace’s face._

_“Luffy’s gonna be back any minute now, stop stressing,” Ace ordered. “I have an idea.”_

_“Oh?”_

_“Let's just twist the dragon up.”_

_Sabo blinked. And blinked. And blinked._

_“I—” And then Sabo was the angry one, slapping Ace’s chest in indignation. Ace was too busy smugly laughing to retaliate. “I guess that would work.”_

_So that was how the two boys managed, with Luffy halfway up the hill dragging a tusked pig carcass behind him, to light up the night sky above Mt. Corvo. The dragon was red and huge, with gleaming fangs and a plume of flames coming out of its mouth. Meant to be standing up straight, its legs stuck out at awkward angles after Ace’s executive decision to twist half the dragon under itself. But of course, Luffy didn’t mind at all. The youngest brother was practically in tears from the surprise, clapping his hands and bouncing about in glee as the tusked pig cooked between the three of them._

_“You two are the best,” Luffy sighed in heartfelt declaration, rolling about the dirt._

_“It was all Ace’s idea,” Sabo revealed, determined not to let Ace off the hook. Ace’s cheeks were red, and it could’ve just been the bonfire, had Ace not also turned away in embarrassment._

_“Sabo’s the one who stole the fireworks.”_

_“Yeah but Ace—”_

_“You two are the best!” Luffy repeated, this time in a brilliant shout as he rubber-banded himself across the clearing to smack into his two brothers, drawing the three of them into a tumbling hug in the dirt._

Sabo remembered—

_Fire, the red torchlights lining the alley wall._

_“Wait, Sabo–_ Wait! _Ace is still back there!”_

_“We’re going back,” Sabo yelled as they skirted around a tight corner, dirt full of sharp granite flakes digging into their feet and knees. None of the gangsters had pursued the two smaller boys, not with Ace, all angry shouts and brutal smacks of his metal pipe, as distraction. “We’ll circle around, but we’re going back.”_

_“I don’t– Why did we have to leave him behind?” Luffy was ever the crybaby, voice wobbling around tears and phlegm. Sabo would usually comfort him while Ace scoffed and walked ahead, except this time, Sabo kind of wanted to cry right along with him. It was a terrifying, unprecedented situation, after all. Sabo never felt more like a child, a truly reachable target for all the jeering insults tossed their way._

_But he couldn’t cry. He had to be strong, and go back for Ace._

_“Because we’re not strong enough yet,” Sabo told Luffy, tone even and honest. He made quick work of scaling the backside of the storage shed Ace was still in, Luffy tumbling behind. With the memory of a spot of sunlight pouring in from the roof, Sabo stepped silently across the wooden planks, searching for the hole. “We’re too weak not to retreat, at least for just a little bit.”_  

_“But we’re going back,” Luffy said, like he was breathing this fact into reality. “We’re going back, Sabo.”_

_“Of course.” Sabo’s boot tapped gently once on the edge of the plank, where the splintered hole was in sight. A slight creak. He and Luffy would be able to break through it easily. Below, he could hear the grunts and shouts of Ace holding his own, even in a fight against five armed adults. Hopefully, with Sabo and Luffy getting the literal drop of the five guys, they’d all be able to make it out of there alive._

_“Remember Luffy,” he said. Fire glistened in little puddles, stretching across the city at their feet, and from the warehouse flames shone bright too. Sabo gripped his pipe in one hand and his little brother in the other. “We always go back. What are brothers for, right? We always come back, when it counts the most.”_  

Sabo remembered—

Sabo remembered.

* * *

Feeling came back in little pieces, in bold defiance of the snow’s hypnotic cold. Sabo had never felt more awake, his brain whirring and heart pumping at double, triple time as he impatiently waited for his body to get with the program. He knew—he _knew_. He had gotten back the precious memories lost to the fire. Twin tracks of hot tears found their way down his frozen cheeks. The fuse deep in his chest, buried so deep in soot that he didn’t even realize it was there, had been reignited. Ace. Luffy. Brothers. Sabo had gotten them back.

...Kind of, but not quite yet. Sabo moved his creaking joints, and a groan of pain escaped from low in his throat. All his muscles had seized during his remembrance, and unclenching them felt like splintering wood. He crackled back into life, fingers the last to regain warmth and flex, digging into the soft cloth of…

The pirate. Marco. His shirt started off red, but now looked dyed through with blackened blood. Sabo gulped, and lowered the man to the ground.

“Hey,” he called softly, “Marco-san? Are you conscious?” 

He certainly didn’t look conscious, both eyes bruised and closed. Sabo’s sharp eyes caught the twitch of muscle at the corner of his lips, though.

“Oh, so now it’s Marco- _san_?”

Sabo blinked, and chuckled, the rumbling in his chest pressed rather intimately against the pirate’s arm. He hoped Marco could feel it. He hoped he didn’t accidentally kill Marco.

“You just gave me back my life, after all,” Sabo said quietly. “That’s deserving of some respect, wouldn’t you say?”

“Potash,” Marco said suddenly. It took a moment for Sabo to remember it as the name of the farming town just south of the capital, about half an hour’s travel from where the docks that they were at. “Third rotunda, little shack with a shingled wooden roof. Behind and underneath—”

Breaking off, Marco hacked up a lungful of blood, and that was no good at all. Sabo picked him up, bundled closer than a true bridal style carry, but in the same spirit of things. Marco weighed curiously light in his arms.

“You can’t heal yourself any longer,” Sabo observed, voice flat with guilt and concern. “Did I have something to do with that?”

“You know Ace asked me the exact same thing, before?” were the last words Marco said, tone weak yet full of fondness, before he passed out against Sabo’s chest. Wasting no more time, Sabo took off for the dock, thanking the tides for his beached scooter. The machine was built for one, but with a bit of quick thinking, Marco was secured to Sabo’s back (and the duffel relocated to Marco's back), arms threaded through Sabo’s coat with the sleeves knotted in front of Sabo. The engine revved. Water splashed up, white and freezing around them and Sabo sailed south, all plans to meet with Koala stashed on the backburner.

They were minutes away from Potash when an angry blaze of flames smashed into Sabo’s scooter and knocked him and Marco into the air. The coat ripped at once from the impact, and when Sabo saw the inferno headed for Marco, he managed a terribly straining torso twist to get a grip on the pirate’s ankle. He intended to get Marco out of harm’s way, but the fire suddenly sprouted hands and arms. It grabbed Marco—and by connection, Sabo—and propelled toward the coast.

For the second time that night, Sabo landed painfully on the rough stone shards of a St. Glassian beach. He wouldn’t let go of Marco though, and with a haki-imbued strike, managed to knock the flame-person back (as he thought, it was a Logia user, but really a ball of sentient flames would hardly be the weirdest thing Sabo’s seen in his years with the RA). As gently as he could given the circumstances, Sabo regathered Marco into his arms, hunched protectively over the limp body.

“And who the hell are you supposed to be?” Sabo called warily. The Logia’s torrential flames were unabating and risking far more attention than necessary. After all, they were only a few kilometers from town’s edge. There were several possibilities then: the fire Logia was deliberately trying to draw attention, which would mean enemy backup was coming; or the fire Logia didn’t care about drawing attention, which meant either Marco was meant to be killed as swiftly as possible (so any attention from townspeople would be too late), or that the Logia was too emotionally promised to care (which might mean, against all odds and Sabo’s luck with this kind of shit, that the Logia might not be an enemy).

Whatever the truth, Sabo had to end this as fast as possible, and play keep-away with Marco at least for the time being. He made his decision, and the man-shaped form in the middle of the flames snarled, “ _give him here_.” How annoyingly ambiguous.

Sabo launched the offensive first, knowing that if the Logia was in fact gunning for Marco, he needed to maintain the distance between the two. It was a calculated sacrifice, because even several meters away, Sabo was already feeling the unease crawl up his spine at the proximity of fire. This was not a sustainable fight for Sabo, and whatever Koala might say, he wasn’t _stupidly_ arrogant, so he quickly settled _subdue opponent_ as his priority, instead of total defeat. There was a chance the Logia was on Marco’s side, after all.

Haki flooded and hardened Sabo’s hands, and Sabo aimed for the general region of the Logia’s center of mass. He felt his attack brush against a bare torso, and found himself momentarily bewildered before he realized a fire Logia probably had no problems with internal temperature control. His first attack didn’t land, but that was okay, because his second one did. Another mid-air twist of his torso, and Sabo felt his boot bear down on a shoulder. Fire licked up his calves, and Sabo breathed through it, held his ground.

Like a seasoned fighter, the Logia moved through the pain, leaning into Sabo’s weight and throwing Sabo over his shoulder. Sabo landed and rolled. Soles of his boots scrambling against the sand, the moment Sabo caught traction he launched himself into a tackle, feeling his body seize up at the sudden intrusion of fire all around. The Logia, who had been about to make for Marco again, tumbled into the sand with Sabo, flesh becoming palpable in Sabo’s arms and strands of dark hair getting into Sabo’s eyes…

Much of the fire siphoning away, Sabo’s sight flooded with the Logia’s human back and the giant Whitebeard jolly roger painted across it. Ah well, that answered that. Whitebeard pirates were infamously protective of their own. This was not an enemy, but an angry and desperate ally of Marco’s.

...Which did nothing to help _Sabo_ , he realized, as an elbow buried itself into his gut. The Logia flipped their positions with incredible ease, and then all Sabo could see was the bright torch of fire coming right at his face—

Sabo came back to himself in bits and pieces, shivering from the cold sweat all over his body. The first thing he felt was his fingers, and the second thing shame. Shame for having blacked out again on the battlefield, in _one night_. Hack would have a field day with him. With his whole body numb, Sabo had a moment of awful dread that the fire had happened again. That he had once again been eaten whole, and that this time he didn’t have the luck of Dragon-san being just around the corner. Just when he finally retrieved his memories too, just when he thought he could get his brothers back…

With a gasp, Sabo surged up, and came face-to-face with a man—the Logia—looking like he’d seen a ghost. Black hair long enough to be dipping into his eyes, the intensely drilling gaze like he could parse the very fabric of the world as long as he stared hard enough, the splatter of freckles on tanned cheeks, across the straight bridge of his nose, the thin lips, wide mouth, sharp cut of jawbone…

The man grabbed Sabo by the lapels, flames licking up his forearms lighting their faces as the man drew them closer together, mouth agape. Sabo was sure his own expression was mirrored, but with his throat tightening around a gulp and his eyes stinging with tears. This was… This was…

“Who—” The man was choked up too. It was only with every ounce of training from the last decade that Sabo repressed all the tears he wanted to shed. But the man forced out, “who _are_ you?”

That was the billion beli question, wasn’t it? Who was Sabo now, ten years later? A Revolutionary who saved lives and cultures and civilizations? Or a man who has tossed his whole soul and being into a second cause because he lost his very first? Could he call himself brother? But a brother was someone who _comes back_ , and Sabo had lost… everything. He lost, and he forgot, and he left _them_ behind. And he knew, of course, that this wasn’t the sort of thing Ace or Luffy would hold against him—but wasn’t it? He was a naive, simple dumbass to sail out on his own like that, and he had broken their hearts by contracting the most idiotic case of death. He shouldn’t—he _couldn’t_ claim to be Ace’s Sabo. He had no right to take back that title of _brother_ on his own.

So Sabo looked past the fire (and how ironic and maybe _just_ it was, that Ace had eaten the Mera Mera no Mi?), into Ace’s eyes, and said:

“You may have taught me about hunting and what game was edible, but I was the one who showed you which plants to pick for seasoning. We always argued about who was the better cook.”

The stricken, haunted haze in Ace’s eyes shattered a bit at the edges, but Sabo couldn’t quite make out what’s underneath. So he continued:

“The first time we sparred to fifty, it took you twenty-one losses to figure out your blind spot every time you block right. But after that you squared up your defenses, and beat me twenty-seven to twenty-three.”

The fire flared and died and flared and died, along with Ace’s breath. Sabo did his best to ignore it, but with chills still running rampant through all his major muscle groups, something in his face must’ve given it away. Ace’s gaze flashed to the scar over Sabo’s eyes, down to his fire, and widened in guilt as he put two and two together. The fire withdrew from Sabo, dancing around and illuminating Ace, leaving Sabo shivering. 

“You hate your paternal blood,” Sabo continued quietly, “but you love your mother. You’re like a bloodhound with two things in this world: cooked food, and hibiscus, Rouge’s favorite flower. Wherever one was, you’d find your way there.”

The sun was inching over the horizon, and Sabo smiled sadly as he watched Ace’s lower lip tremble. Ace’s brow looked like he hasn’t yet made up his mind whether to remain angrily suspicious, or give in to the heartbreaking hope that was emerging behind his glare. Sabo wanted to touch him, to hold him so badly. But he couldn’t, not without—

“Hey, did we ever figure out—” Sabo’s voice was going all wobbly, as was his expression. “—figure out who was the older brother? I know that– Luffy’s a whole crybaby. Two– Two older brothers, and one younger—”

The fire went out. With a cry, Ace pulled Sabo into a tight, clasping, _violent_ hug. Fingers clawed and muscles squeezed. Ace’s sobs were basically screams, right in Sabo’s ear, and Sabo couldn’t make out a single word that Ace was blubbering, just a string of consonants and horribly unattractive wheezes and snot and phlegm clogging up every orifice.

It was the best thing Sabo’s ever felt.

* * *

“I cannot _believe_ —” Ace’s voice was still a bit nasally from the sobfest, but he managed to communicate the proper level of regret. “—we just forgot about Marco like that.”

“We didn’t forget,” Sabo replied, voice similarly compromised. His whole face felt raw from scrubbing away tears and snot, and he was sure the wispy daylight coming over the island’s eastern ranges were doing him no favors, exposing his splotchy red cheeks and eyes. “We got him now, don’t we?”

“After leaving him to _freeze in the snow_ for like, twenty minutes,” Ace wailed. Marco was parked on his back as they made their way to the Potash safehouse, into the third rotunda etc., exactly where Marco said it would be. Ace was supposed to wait, apparently, but of course had gotten too impatient and went out on his own. Sabo wondered why Marco, who seemed smart enough to have predicted this kind of behavior from Ace, even bothered giving Ace that kind of instruction.

“He’s the phoenix, isn’t he? Won’t he heal?”

Even his own argument sounded weak to Sabo’s ears, as the two brothers both glanced back at the bloody and bruised body draped over Ace’s shoulders. Now, they could add blue lips and possible hypothermia to Marco’s already-terrible condition. Sabo winced.

“You know I’d be the first to own up to defeating Marco the Phoenix in a fair fight, but this wasn’t me, I swear. Well, not entirely.”

After a moment of stillness, Ace sighed, and a deep furrow cut its way between his brows.

“I know,” he said, voice dropping low and serious. “Did he just randomly stop healing? Behaved like something was draining all of his energy? I’ve seen this happen before.”

The door they came to was nondescript, and so was the safehouse’s interior design. Incredibly serviceable though, Sabo recognized, as Ace laid Marco down not on the linen-lined double bed, but on a separate cushioned operating table. The flooring was stone, and sloped almost unnoticeably to a corner with a drain that no doubt was installed for easy cleanup of blood or other such fluids. Sturdy metal cabinets lined one wall—Sabo knew a medical suite when he saw one.

“A side effect of his fruit?” Sabo asked, not putting much hope in the answer. Predictably, Ace shook his head, then gestured to Marco’s exposed torso.

Sabo leaned in for a closer look, and saw in the dim light, beyond the dark red bruising, a spot of unsettling black, right at the very bottom of Marco’s sternum.

“You might want to stand back a bit for this,” Ace warned, glancing at Sabo’s scar. Once Sabo’s face wasn’t inches away from Marco, Ace placed a hand on Marco’s bicep, and turned into fire.

Sabo watched in uneasy surprise as Marco’s body immediately ate up the flames. There was a flare of the familiar phoenix blue, but that disappeared with a blink. Instead, all the red turned blue that sizzled on Marco’s flesh went directly to the black spot, like water spiraling down a drain.

“It’s a side effect of _me_ ,” Ace whispered, and his tone was the chillingly familiar self-hatred from their youth years that immediately had Sabo’s hackles up.

“It started happening before you even got there,” he argued, “how could it possibly be because of you?”

“Last time this happened to him, he saved my life,” Ace snapped. “And this time, he brought you back to me. Call me self-centered, but I’m the only common denominator here. 

“No,” Sabo said, “so is Marco.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, growing up being told you’re to blame for everything your mom’s husband did messed up your sense of responsibility, just a bit. Has Marco ever once blamed you? If not, give it up already, it’s not your fault.”

The flash of anger in Ace’s eyes gave Sabo a somewhat perverse sense of joy. If he concentrated, he still felt like the edges of his vision weren’t quite right, and things weren’t quite real. Every unattractive detail or negative reaction from Ace grounded the air in Sabo’s lungs.

“You, Sabo, are telling _me_ about a guilt complex? Growing up being told you’re not responsible for _anything_ doesn’t mean everything is actually on your shoulders now to fix.”

Sabo blinked, and remembered abruptly that ten years have passed. He was certainly a much smarter adult now than he was a kid, and it wouldn’t do for him to underestimate Ace. Carefully, Sabo retreated to the brass sink in the corner of the room, and began to fill the basin with warm water.

“You know what I do?”

“Marco gave me the rundown on the RA before he went out on recon.” Wordlessly, Ace nodded at the top right cupboard. Sabo fetched the stack of flannels as indicated. “I mean, I only figured—you wouldn’t work under a monarchy, after all. I just didn’t even imagine it could be you.”

“Didn’t imagine I’d be alive at all,” Sabo said, “if it weren’t for him.”

Neither spoke for a while, and the little room was cozy with the sound of dripping water as Sabo rung out two towels. Tossing one to Ace, they both began to methodically wipe Marco down, all fires extinguished for now. They moved about the room, swapping dirty and bloody linen for fresh ones, and soon all the little bruises and scrapes on Marco’s skin became visible in the pink dawn light.

“He first took me to see Luffy.” The way Ace spoke now had a quality of confession, and Sabo was so floored by the amount of faith Ace kept in him, to be showing this brittle and tender underbelly. “Luffy sailed out this year, you know? Gathered a good crew, having a great time. I was so grateful that I wanted to do something, anything for Marco. He told me he was looking for someone important in the RA. I thought he meant for him.”

“He’s reunited you with your brothers,” Sabo pieced together.

“He let me believe this was for him.” Fist clenching, stray drops of tepid water dribbled out the towel in Ace’s hand and down the slope of Marco’s chest. Sabo wordlessly wiped it up. “When all this time—”

“He sounds like a smitten idiot, yes,” Sabo interrupted. It successfully pulled Ace’s attention back up and out.

“He could’ve died.”

“You don’t become a pirate for the longevity. And besides—” Flashes of memory from their childhood were still repopulating Sabo’s mind, and an uncomfortable remembrance surfaced. “I seem to remember trying, and _failing,_ to convince you that staying alive was the most important thing.”

St. Glassian architecture would be considered utterly commonplace, if it weren’t for one particular feature. Sabo had been introduced to it by a proud porter in the palace—something about the particular composition of the soil along the inner coastline and the particulate matter sent floating into the air by their frequent minor earthquakes created specific refractory properties in the permafrost of the island’s northern icecaps. On the western leg of the island—Boli, the natives called it, after the capital—all houses were built from this mined permafrost, and the effect was a completely opaque exterior, but floor-to-ceiling translucence on the inside. St. Glassians had no need for windows, or very many interior light fixtures.

Now, daylight set the safehouse aglow, and Sabo could see quite clearly every twitch of emotion on Ace’s face—from the knee-jerk displeasure to the wash of guilt, then mature solemnity as Ace met Sabo’s eyes.

“After we thought you died,” he said, voice still not altogether steady, “I made a promise to Luffy. I swore that I wouldn’t die.”

“Ah, if I’d know all it took was me dying.” Sabo’s voice sounded far away even to himself, and he was 100% deserving of the towel smack Ace unleashed onto his bicep.

“But I guess I forgot– No, I don’t think I ever understood the full weight of that promise. Not until—” Here, he broke off to glance down at Marco, and Sabo saw the slightest hint of flushed, embarrassed pleasure. Mostly though, Ace looked at peace. “Not until Marco helped me figure that out.”

Jealousy, incandescent and awful, flared in Sabo’s chest. It felt so ugly, yet so true to the core of who Sabo was—a man who had lost his boyhood self and love. Because of one shitty arrogant bastard of a Celestial Dragon, Sabo was robbed of his chance to see a man he loved survive, grow, and _become_. Here sat Ace, maturity and settledness visible from the very slope of his shoulders, and something tentative blooming in the curve of his lips. He had overcome the greatest demon of his mortal life, and Sabo hadn’t been there for him, hadn’t been there to see it.

 _He_ had though, the man lying before them. The kind, generous, self-sacrificing, _wonderful_ Marco-san. It made Sabo grateful and bitter in equal measures.

“So how long have you two been together?” he asked, casually perching on a stool.

“Traveling? Nearly a month, I think?” A long, pointed pause, before Ace grew flustered under Sabo’s dead-eye stare. “Wait, you meant– Oh shut up, not you too!”

“Me ‘too?’ What, even Luffy could see it?” Eyebrows wiggling in the way Koala always smacked him for, Sabo snickered and let Ace’s punch land. “Neither of you are particularly subtle.”

“We’re not together!” Ace hissed. There was a sense of kinetic energy under Ace’s skin, an almost-motion that Sabo could nonetheless see. It took a moment for Sabo to realize that was Ace’s fire, thrumming to get out. Ace must be _mortified_. He kept looking down at Marco, like he was expecting the older man to be awake to witness his humiliation. “Marco’s– He’s like– Like a brother to me.”

Oh Sabo’s heard that before. Looking a boy in the eyes and telling himself that this was _brotherly_ love, and in no way the all-consuming, hyper-focused, gluttonous love of something else. “Mhm, sure.”

“Okay, I guess—” With a groan, Ace dropped his head into his hands. As he spoke around his palms, his words came out distorted, but it was nothing Sabo couldn’t decipher. “So maybe I’m kind of into him, but he’s not interested in me.”

“...Huh?” Sabo had a hard time even replying to the clearly ludicrous statement. “Didn’t you just finish telling me that he saved your life, reunited you with me and Luffy against all odds, all while sacrificing himself to do so?”

“See?” Ace mumbled. “It is my fault.”

“It’s his own damn fault.” Shrugging, Sabo ignored the glare Ace tossed his way. “For, you know, being so in love with you he’d go out of his way to do all these things.” 

That propelled Ace to his feet, and Sabo watched as he paced back and forth along the length of Marco’s bed. They were all three active children once, but Ace had always been more prone to motion as manifestation of emotional outbursts than Sabo. Sabo knew this, and still pushed.

“He has never,” Ace began, “said anything to indicate– You think I haven’t tried? I’m not the type to just sit around pining, you know. I’ve literally thrown myself at him, multiple times. He doesn’t want me like that.” 

The thought of Ace throwing himself at anyone was left carefully unexamined, and Sabo stood too, hands held out in a mollifying manner. “Alright sure, I see how you might think that. But don’t you also—”

“Like you said,” Ace interrupted, “he’s given me everything—his powers, his time, his _life_ . He’s offered everything up to me on a silver platter, everything except for– for _that_. So how could I possibly ask for more of him?”

 _You’d only make him the happiest man in the world_ , Sabo thought, but knew better than to say. Sure, he was of the firm belief—from the ten seconds of coherent conversation he managed to snatch with Marco—that the older man was more than gone over Ace, and Sabo’s instincts have never led him wrong. But he also didn’t get this far working for the Most Wanted Man in the World by being incautious. So Sabo just nodded, something noncommittal yet acquiescent to Ace’s unspoken request for an end to the conversation. Then he bent, got his arms under Marco, and lifted.

“He’ll be more comfortable in the bed,” he announced, stepping around the examination table.

“Here, I can get him—”

“—it’s fine, I got it.” Dodging both Ace’s hands and curious gaze, Sabo made his way to the actual mattress, and the soft-looking rumple of sheets. “He’s weirdly light for an old man.”

“It’s the phoenix, we think,” Ace said, alluding to the whole score of siblings that he had now. Sabo supposed he couldn’t be too bitter—he’s got the Revolutionary Army, after all. But that was still different, because while there was certainly love between the Revolutionaries, what ultimately bounded them was the Cause. They’d all die for the Cause first, each one of them eager to throw themselves down on the proverbial grenade. With Ace, it kind of felt like Sabo himself was the grenade, eager to be wielded and of use (but deserving to be nowhere near its owner).

Sabo fixed the sheets around Marco, and Ace added, quite belatedly, “he’s not old.”

“Older,” Sabo corrected obligingly. “Now you want to get over here and charge him up some more, or—”

Right on cue, a loud, long growl filled the room, and both pairs of conscious eyes dropped to Ace’s stomach. Ace slapped a hand over his flashy abs with a grimace.

“I guess I haven’t actually eaten since yesterday noon. You hungry?”

Sending Ace a look that clearly conveyed how idiotic that question was, Sabo drawled, “I could always eat.” Then, “how well do you know this place?”

“Saw enough coming in,” Ace answered, already reaching down to relace and buckle his boots. “There’s a stretch of chaparral east of here. I can probably find us some small game, some tubers.” 

“I’ll watch Marco,” Sabo said. He knew that Ace didn’t pause out of skepticism at his words, but it still made Sabo feel all sorts of weird things, to see that Marco wasn’t something Ace immediately trusted Sabo with. He promised, “I’ll be careful.”

“He probably won’t wake up before I’m back anyways,” Ace said, as if in reassurance to himself.

“Bring a den den mushi with you, and I’ll ring you if he wakes.”

“...Alright.” Finally looking back up, Ace graced Sabo with a gentle, happy grin. “Thanks, Sabo. I’ve just been talking your ear off, haven’t I? Sorry to be such a self-centered prick.” 

“Well I’m used to it, aren’t I?” Sabo teased. Ace didn’t put on a coat, but he did put on a hat, orange and decked out with wild adornments. As he did so, the tattoo on his bicep rippled along the flexed muscles. A crossed-out S. That was the last thing Sabo saw before the flames took him, his flag fluttering above his little dingy. That Ace carried a piece of him like this was a humbling reminder of how much he still owed Ace and Luffy.

It made Sabo sick to his stomach, thinking about what he was about to do.

“When I get back, you’re gonna tell me everything you’ve been up to,” Ace demanded. Sabo grabbed Ace’s outstretched hand and let himself be pulled into a hug. He had taken off his gloves to wet the towels, and now felt the weather-worn calloused palms on Ace. He let his fingers linger, tracing the rough textures. “And don’t think I forgot the fact that you’re hanging out with Luffy’s old man.”

“Dragon-san’s pretty cool.” Another grumbling protest from Ace’s stomach, and Sabo finally let go, pushing Ace toward the door with a laugh. “Alright, get going already, breadwinner. Don’t leave your poor wife starving at home,” he said, meaning Marco.

“I’d never let you starve, dear.” Because of course that was the last thing Ace was going to say, before he shut the door behind him with a wink. Sabo watched him go, the silhouette of his bare torso growing hazier and hazier through the wall, until the light outside was a stretch of pure white once more. Sabo used his observation haki too, just to really check that Ace was far gone from the perimeter.

Then Sabo withdrew a black metal case from the inner pocket of his coat, and turned back to Marco.

* * *

When Marco came awake with a haggard gasp, he couldn’t figure out where he was. The light was too bright to have woken him up naturally, and the aches and sharp jolts along his body told a tale of recent battles. There was the faintest scent of burning sugar in the air.

He slowly sat up and focused on the figure to the left of his bedside, the vivid blond hair, the rigid stare and the scar over one eye. Sabo, Ace and Strawhat’s brother, the Revolutionary. The man he had met standing over Ace’s grave. The room was otherwise empty.

Bone-deep terror sunk into Marco, wiping away any traces of physical pain. The room was otherwise empty—he knew it, he knew it was too good to be true. What, was it all some sort of feverish pipe dream? Some kind of time limit the horned creature never warned him about? The cruelest thing his subconscious has ever done to him, given Marco just a taste of salvation, then ripping it away? The few days he had with Pops and Thatch, the blissful weeks he had with Ace—god, the flightish fantasy of Ace’s words, the beautiful claim to a desire to live. How badly had he wanted to change the young man’s mind, wished Ace never pursued Teach in the first place. How badly Marco wanted—

“He’s just gone to get food.” Marco’s breath seized, and Sabo cocked his head. “Ace is fine, Marco-san.”

All his veins still awash with adrenaline, Marco forced himself to hear Sabo’s words. He forced himself to remember every single moment in the past three weeks when he had tried to pinch himself awake, but found himself still firmly fixed in the past. With a wobbling exhale, Marco slumped forward, releasing all his tense muscles and bringing his face to his hands—

Gloved palms gently captured his wrists and brought them up and away, and all of a sudden, Sabo's torso—now redressed in a neat jacket with gleaming black buttons—was a lot closer to Marco’s face. Sabo’s weight settled on Marco’s lap as the young man lowered him back down flat on the bed.

There was something strange in Sabo’s eyes, hovering over Marco.

“Ace would never forgive me if you hurt yourself,” Sabo said conversationally. The Revolutionary was uncannily good at speaking without changing his expression in the slightest. “So please, don’t move.”

Now that feeling had come back to Marco’s body, Marco could register the magnitude of pain and discomfort he was in. And as much as he wanted to believe in his own recuperative strength, his current state of consciousness felt… unnatural. Electric and sputtering.

Marco’s gaze strayed to the side, and caught the metallic glint of a needle and a dispensed syringe, sitting on display in a velvet-lined little black box.

“Did you wake me?” he asked slowly. Sabo nodded, releasing Marco’s wrists and sitting back up. His hands, though, remained on Marco’s chest, fingers applying just enough pressure to remind Marco of the fight they had earlier, and what those fingers could do. A threat.

“It’s a chemical booster,” Sabo explained, “standard issue for the RA, for the times when we need just a little bit _more_ to finish the mission. It’s terrible for your heart, but hey, desperate times.”

“Is this a desperate time, yoi?”

“Well, I might have to kill you.” He let the words hung in the air like dust motes, before shrugging once. “The thought of being estranged from Ace again, just when I’ve gotten him back, has made me very desperate, yes.” Sabo broke off once more, considering. Then, “you know what I’m going to ask.”

“Sure.” Marco had been meditating on it since they left the Strawhats. Almost all of his efforts though, were systematically destroyed by the RA’s meticulous, hyper-paranoid counterintelligence. “You’re going to ask me how I knew about you.”

“Well done, Marco-san,” Sabo complimented, his hands sweeping up along Marco’s sternum. “And now that I know you’ve prepared an answer, I’m going to have to deploy measures to make sure you aren’t lying to me.”

Gloved fingers tightened around Marco’s windpipe. His own hands twitching, Marco entertained the thought of fighting Sabo off, but decided the surely futile effort wasn’t worth the embarrassment. He had faint recollections of Ace recharging him by fire, and felt just a bit stronger for it, but it was nothing against the full strength of the RA’s Chief of Staff. The squeeze was just a warning, and Marco chuckled.

“Why would I lie to you?”

“I’m sure there’s no good reason,” Sabo said agreeably, shifting as if to get his hands more comfortable around Marco’s neck, the cheeky bastard. “So tell me the truth then, Marco-san.”

Marco was all ready, with his one big story—there was still one name remaining that spanned both the networks of the RA and the Whitebeard pirates, though Izo gave Marco a warning about using it. The timescales wouldn’t quite line up, and Marco would basically be betting that Sabo wouldn’t know the person, or what happened to her. Marco’s poker face wasn’t too bad, and he was all prepared to bluff the hell out of the situation.

Except he never got the chance. The moment he formulated his thoughts and started to speak, he was hit with a wave of nausea so thick that it almost knocked him right back out. If it wasn’t for the light jostling Sabo gave him from a grip on his shoulders, Marco might have actually lost consciousness again.

Above him, Sabo had one eyebrow condescendingly raised.

“I forgot to mention, I also added a touch of truth serum to the mix,” he said, miming emptying a syringe. “So that’s a good question, Marco-san, why _would_ you lie to me?”

Well, fuck. Marco hadn’t expected this. The grip tightened around his throat, and Marco could feel the tense pressure climbing up the sides of his neck.

“You know I _will_ kill you,” Sabo said.

“I’d let you,” Marco choked out. The pressure stopped building, but didn’t relent.

“Interesting,” declared Sabo. “You think I wouldn’t risk Ace’s wrath to protect the cause I’ve spent the past ten years of my life fighting for?”

Light-headedness from air loss and the truth serum was a formidable combination, but Marco wasn’t yet out of plays. He drew in a limited stretch of breath.

“I think you wouldn’t risk Ace’s heartbreak.” Marco hated the wheezing quality of his voice, but there was little choice but to continue. “Coming back to find that his sworn brother has killed me, another member of his family? He wouldn’t be angry, he’d be devastated.”

“But I’ve already broken his heart once,” Sabo scoffed, “what’s a second?”

It was meant to sound like the declaration of a stone-cold killer with nothing to lose, but somehow, a shard of truth got through, and Marco heard the blame Sabo leveraged at himself. He frowned.

“Ace wouldn’t blame you—”

Grip. Marco’s voice broke off into stilted choking noises, and Sabo looked just a bit angrier.

“I’m running out of time here. Who told you?” His voice had dropped low and dangerous, and his grip was rapidly tightening. “Who’s your informant in the RA?”

“Nobody,” Marco hissed. “Don’t do this. To Ace, to yourself—”

“Goodbye then, Marco-san—”

“Wait—" 

Marco wished he was throttling the stupid kid himself. Of all the brash, reckless choices to make, Sabo had to put Ace’s mental well-being on the line. And what was it with these two brothers, and their bottomless chasm of self-destructive tendencies? Did Strawhat share that darkness? But Marco was running out of air, and fuck, it really wouldn’t do to die right here, would it? He wasn’t going to reunite the brothers, only to directly cause a potentially lethal rift between the two, and then not even be around to fix it. And, it’ll suck, but he supposed there was no real good reason he couldn’t tell Sabo—

“ _Wait_.”

It took both the wheezing yelp and a series of sloppy slaps along Sabo’s arm to get Sabo to let up. Marco grabbed a fistful of the kid’s lapel to haul himself up, knocking Sabo off his lap and dropping into a violent coughing fit. The coughs were somehow both wet and dry, his abused muscles grating harshly against the explosive strain, and tears springing up at the corners of his eyes.

Sabo’s hand was once again inching up toward his neck, and Marco brusquely slapped it away.

“How am I supposed to tell you anything when you’ve _broken_ my throat, yoi?” Marco snapped, sending him into another round of coughs. “Asshole.”

“Want some water?” Sabo asked sweetly.

“Not from you,” Marco grumbled, massaging his throat. It was surely going to bruise, and he looked forward to Sabo’s explanation for that to Ace. “There’s no mole in the RA, yoi, and as far as our intelligence division knows, no leaks either. You’re almost a hundred percent impenetrable in terms of your top secret operations, and at this point, most people don’t know your name and title, Mr. Chief of Staff.”

“But you’re not most people.”

“I’m,” Marco said, feeling the most idiotic he’s ever been for not having practiced for this eventuality, “from the future.”

A beat, then Sabo’s hand came toward his throat again.

“Stop that.” Once again slapping Sabo away, Marco growled, “truth serum, remember?”

“Of all the clichéd, ridiculous stories,” Sabo asked, incredulous, “you’re going with time travel?" 

Marco thought to himself, the Sabo of two years later, from his timeline, was so much more broken. They had met while Sabo was on his way to find Strawhat, so Marco certainly hoped seeing the beloved younger brother again had changed things for the better. But he remembered the hollow-eyed flatness to Sabo’s whole character, back then, like the young man had been gouged empty from the mere sight of Ace’s grave.

He also remembered sharing tea with the young man.

“You told me you didn’t like ginger tea on its own, but you’d drink it for days with honey.”

The Sabo in front of him had far more life in comparison. But Marco couldn’t help but notice the similarities—the self-recrimination that had already grown so huge even with Ace still alive (it’s a small miracle then, that Sabo was even functional in Marco’s timeline), the resolute grimace that swore to do every dirty deed in order to protect Sabo’s goals, the guardedness and suspicion. The scarring.

“Your boat was shot down by a Celestial Dragon just off the coast of Goa Kingdom, where you were born. The RA rescued you from the wreckage. You were ten.”

“Ace could’ve told you all that,” Sabo pointed out. He was giving very little indication that he was even listening to Marco’s claims, but Marco supposed the lack of reaction was enough of a reaction from him.

“True,” Marco agreed, “but you’re the one who showed me the scarring goes down to your fourth rib from the bottom. You said you don’t have very much feeling in your left shoulder anymore.”

Sabo wasn’t even blinking as he stared Marco down, no doubt searching for any hesitation or stutters that would compromise what Marco was saying. But there was no truth serum-induced nausea. What Marco wielded was imperturbably true, based on the very rules that Sabo had set.

“I showed you?” Sabo asked, suddenly on the offensive. “What, you couldn’t bed Ace so you settled for the brother?”

Even knowing it was Sabo’s intention, Marco felt the anger stirring up inside him. He did his best to tamp it down though.

“It was raining, I dried your clothes,” Marco explained. “No one slept with anyone.”

Sabo hummed, “bet you were disappointed, huh old man?”

“We both were,” Marco snapped, “in ourselves, yoi, because Ace was _dead_ , and neither of us had done jack shit to prevent it.”

The gibness immediately dropped from Sabo’s expression, replaced by something a whole lot more dangerous. Marco supposed this was the last sight of any idiot who threatened Sabo’s loved ones. Well, tough shit. Marco had literal decades on the brat, and Sabo had another thing coming if he thought he was the only one pissed off about even the threat of Ace’s death. When Sabo stalked forward and tried to loom threateningly, Marco grabbed him by the collar of his coat and yanked him right down to eye level.

“You want the honest truth, _Sabo_ ? We shared a drink that night, and cried together, because my family fought a war to get Ace back. The only war that ever mattered, and we failed. Ace was killed right in front of my eyes. _He died in Luffy’s arms_.”

Sabo was beginning to show his age now—nothing like the horror of losing your most beloved to strip away any pretense at sensibility. Marco would know. But they weren’t done yet, and now that Marco’s started, he wasn’t sure he could stop.

“And where,” Marco asked, “were you?”

Sabo flinched, full-body and violent. This was far worse a blow than anything Marco dealt him on the actual battleground.

“How many people told you it wasn’t your fault, that you couldn’t have done anything,” Marco said, quieter now. His grip on Sabo’s coat had shifted into a grip on Sabo’s shoulder, something altogether more steadying than threatening. “I told you as much, but you clearly didn’t believe me either. We didn’t know each other, what more could I say?”

“I didn’t,” Sabo forced out, the most loathed confirmation he needed to hear, “have my memories?”

To Marco, nothing felt as awful as that day at Marineford, the sheer despair that crawled through and calcified his muscles and joints as he lost two of the brightest lives he’d ever had the privilege to know. But he couldn’t even imagine what Sabo went through, coming into everything too late and on the other side of the world, regaining something precious only to lose it in the same devastating moment.

“You saw it in the newspaper.” It was Marco’s turn to tighten his hold on Sabo, as Sabo caved in on himself, mouth parted in a desperate bid for breath. “They’d printed Ace’s picture, and the headline ‘Fire Fist Ace Dies.’ You said that’s when you remembered—this wasn’t just a random pirate, another tally mark for the Marines. This was your brother. You said you fell into a three-day coma from the shock.”

“I,” Sabo croaked, “I failed him. I— _fuck_ —”

Marco firmly grasped the back of Sabo’s neck and urged the young man to look up at him. This was Marco at his most serious, ready to speak the heaviest vows.

“That’s what I’m back here to prevent, yoi,” he said. “All the mistakes, all the regrets—that’s what all this is for. Ace didn’t deserve– He deserves better. We all do.”

Marco watched Sabo blink away some of the fog in his vision, refocus and frown, lightly.

“How did you manage—?”

“It’s supposed to be a life for a life.” Gesturing at the hole in his abdomen, Marco smiled wryly. “But I’m the immortal phoenix, so maybe I’m a bit overqualified.”

More life poured into Sabo, and Marco instantly saw the brotherly resemblance between him and Ace. The spirit, the resolve.

“So—You losing the fight, does that mean—”

He sure put the pieces together quickly, but unfortunately, Marco had to inform him there were more pieces than he knew.

“At this point I really don’t know.” Marco warned, “it’s the one truly unfortunate part of this bargain. I suffer the consequences while only being able to guess at the cause. I had thought Ace’s life saved, yoi, before we even met up with your younger brother. But reuniting you and Ace… I don’t know if what’s being taken from me is in exchange for the reunion itself, for Ace, or for another life saved.” He took a deep breath. “But it should be a good thing regardless. I cannot emphasize how shit my timeline is, so anything that I have to pay for…”

“Are you,” Sabo asked, “dying, Marco-san?”

Marco burst into laughter, which sent him into another coughing fit. Sabo braced him through it this time, and even reached under the bed to offer a hidden thermos of warm water.

“You sound awfully worried for someone who tried to kill me just minutes ago.”

Letting the water soothe his inflamed throat muscles, Marco didn’t react when Sabo slipped off his gloves and reached for the marks on Marco’s neck. He stopped just shy of making contact.

“My apologies,” Sabo said, sounding genuinely remorseful. “I didn’t know.”

“You’re an idiot,” Marco took the chance to scold, “for putting both Ace and yourself at risk like that.”

“Protecting the Revolution has always come at a high price.”

“Not everything has to have a price.”

“Do you truly believe that, Marco-san?” Sabo sounded simply curious, like for the moment, he would fully accept anything Marco told him. “You just told me that you’re dying over and over again—and you might not even know what for. If I’m not paying the price, it seems like you just might. How do you know it’ll all be worth it?”

Feeling just a little heartbroken for the man in front of him, Marco reached out a hand and tousled Sabo’s hair, leaving Sabo looking bewildered and a little bit flustered.

“We’ve got you back, haven’t we? It’s already been worth it, yoi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest assured that I actually do have the rest of the story planned out, plot-wise. It's just that, once again, I can't tell when I'm overshooting. I'm really hoping to finish this fic before I start my new job though, so I have a soft deadline at least. There's just one big arc left, with Sabo's situation on St. Glass & Solum, and how Marco/Ace/Sabo happens.
> 
> Feel free to hmu on [Tumblr](http://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/). I post updates & extra author's notes about this fic on [Ko-Fi](http://ko-fi.com/irrelevancy).


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